Tik-Tok By: Lauren Render

An entertainment app called Tik-Tok has taken over the phones of many people of all ages in a small amount of time. The app replaced another popular social media app called Musical.ly that was popular in 2016. Tik-Tok was released about a year later in September 2017, since then it has been growing rapidly. The purpose of Tik-Tok is to create content to post, and if someone does not make videos, they can just enjoy others on a page called ‘For You Page’, it is where your videos can be put on if they get a lot of likes. Most of the creators on the ‘For You Page’ have many followers. 

Kailey Wyatt, student at Hillgrove High School, shared a little about Tik-Tok and why she uses it. “I use Tik-Tok because, I like to express my feelings in through the videos that I create and I also like to use it when I am bored.” Although there is a lot to love about Tik-Tok, “My favorite part of Tik-Tok is when I go on there and see cute light skin boys because I like to comment in their section and say, ‘Can I get your snapchat?’” Musical.ly was very similar to Tik-Tok and she talked about when she used Musical.ly. “Yes, I actually did, I’m glad you asked me that, I think I would consider myself an OG or an original because I have been on this app for a very long time, so yeah.” It did not stop Kailey from using the new app the replaced Musical.ly, “Yes I did, I was actually one of the first people at this school to continue to use it and I just spread it to my friends.”

David Morris, another student at Hillgrove High School has actually had a very good experience with Tik-Tok, he has had a few videos go viral. “Um, it actually feels really good because like because I actually, when my videos first went viral it is like whenever like I was having, I was in like a little bit of drama with somebody, I was like, ‘look at me now, I’m famous’, but like I’m not actually famous it was just like whatever.” He talked about the video that went viral, “Um, I was in a hotel room with my guy friends at a lacrosse tournament and um I just made a video and I just kind of like got everybody in it and it went viral somehow so.” There are many people considered famous on the app, but David says what famous actually is to him, “Um, I would consider yourself famous once you have like 100,000 followers and like a million likes. Um I think I got like 66,000 likes.” 

Tik-Tok is a very popular social media app that has many teens attached. As you can see, it is a positive impact on teens, it makes them feel happy and it is good when you have nothing to do. Even though Tik-Tok started out as a replacement and many thought of it as a joke, it has become a huge success, and has won the majority of people over.