The Future is Here. It’s Called TikTok.
It’s technology. It’s art. It’s a revolution against the status quo. It’s a meme factory. It’s Lil Nas X. It’s “ok boomer.” It’s avant-garde. It’s AI. It’s “a freak show with no end in sight.” It’s humanity at it’s best. And you can’t ignore it any longer.
“This Is the Way the World Ends”
If you interact with teens at all, you might have noticed something weird happening the past several months. A strange, magical fog has rolled over the world, causing kids to be spending way more time on their phones than we all thought humanly possible, playing “The Box” on repeat, spontaneously bursting out into spastic dances with little warning, and uttering bizarre sayings such as “yee yee juice,” “fuckin’ mint,” “i smell cap,” and “ok boomer.” It seems a portal from another world has opened up, flooding this generation’s minds with new music, art, celebrities, and a cool cultural undercurrent that fuels their ideas, outfits, and lingo. But you don’t need to go back in time or book a flight on one of Elon Musk’s fancy spaceships to travel to this world - only a tap of the finger. Because all that creativity, hyperactivity, and craziness is contained in an app. And that app is TikTok.
If you’ve been living under a rock and have no idea what I’m talking about, well, let me explain. TikTok is a platform that, as one of its most popular creators, Charli D’Amelio describes, “there’s not one thing to put it in a category of.” It’s a vortex of RAM and cache that enchantingly blends media, entertainment, and information. Instead of friend groups, likes, and status updates, its claim to fame is the “For You” page: a custom, never-ending stream of content based on each user’s unique tastes, created through AI. Part-Instagram and part-Spotify, with hints of the elegantly haunting technological power and beauty seen in Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt,” or the Black Mirror episode “Fifteen Million Merits,” TikTok is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. With its engaged comment sections, collaborative creators, and overall sense of adolescent jitteriness, it’s no wonder so many teens are hooked on TikTok. It’s addicting.
But not everyone shows the same enthusiasm for TikTok as they do. While researching for this piece, I saw several comments by people who saw in the platform a dystopian future quickly approaching, one where people are so glued to the content on their “For You” pages that their brains turn to mush and any emotion or ambition disintegrates into thin air just like that. On the article “We’re All in the Bathroom Filming Ourselves” by The New York Times writer Taylor Lorenz (which describes how teens’ bathroom mirrors are often the setting for their TikToks), one commenter posed the following question: “The dumbing down of America can’t get too much lower at this point. Can it?” I can only imagine another commenter SMH’ing as they critiqued the “ephemeral ‘experiences’ that have lessened [teens’] critical thinking skills and rendered 5-page essays obsolete.” Another claimed “Once again it’s proven that the internet and electronic devices are dumbing down humanity. It’s a freak show with no end in sight.” On another one of Lorenz’s articles, this one about a collaborative on TikTok known as the “Hype House,” one user quoted a T.S. Eliot poem.
I was at first pretty repulsed by TikTok as well. As my friends were sharing the funny TikToks they had found with each other and getting music and fashion inspiration from the app, I was rolling my eyes in abhorrence, thinking it was brainless and most of all, “cringe” (the flagship sign of disapproval from a teenager). And yet, a few months later, I’m obsessed with it. (I will note that this experience is not unique to me, as the hating-TikTok →downloading-it-“as a joke” → becoming-addicted-to-it progression seems to be a common rite of passage these days.) In fact, not only do I think TikTok is “not that bad,” I think it's ultimately a societal good. It blurs the lines between entertainment and social media. It’s a new form of media that accelerates creativity, societal and technological change, and intellectual discourse.
In other words, TikTok is art. It’s also the future of humanity.
The TikToker’s Palette
Okay, so if I want to convince you that TikTok is art, I have to go back to the basics. A quick Google search will tell you that art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Let’s first focus on that middle part - which talks about “form.”
Art revolves around form - and I’d argue, not just visual form, but also auditory, experiential, and emotional. To create that form, artists have tools, mediums, materials. They have a palette.
It’s no different for TikTok creators - or, rather, artists. They still have a palette, full of ideas, emotions, sounds, and scenes that they can use at their disposal. Let’s dive a bit deeper.
Audio
TikTok centers around audio. Audio is to TikTokers as paint is to Van Gogh. It’s their creative lifeblood. On one hand, there is music. Pop-rap or trap hits such as Roddy Rich’s “The Box,” Arizona Zervas “ROXANNE” or Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” are enormously popular on the platform. This style of music has become more prevalent in the past few years and provides a unique sound that is simultaneously relaxing and exciting (what teens often refer to as “hype”). But older songs go viral as well - take Mariah Carey’s 2009 hit “Obsessed” or even Matthew Wilder’s 1989 hit “Break My Stride.”
Users also use more theatrical audio clips - whether that be standout lyrics from songs or commonly known sounds or dialogue from movies and TV shows.
Because most videos on TikTok are fifteen seconds or less, users will choose audio that has some sort of “moment” - a catchy beat, standout lyric, or unexpected transition, which captures the audience’s attention in an exciting and powerful way.
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Roddy Ricch (@roddyricch) has created a short video on TikTok with music The Box. Pour up the whole damn seal #thebox #antisocialtour #antisocial
Media
TikTok allows for seamless integration of photos and videos into artists’ content. This enables them to draw from the outside world - whether that be personal videos and photos or clips and screenshots from YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, other creators, advertisements, or online stores - the possibilities are endless. Sticking with the painting analogy, the old masters used religious or historical events as cultural touchstones to center their work around - think Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Creation of Adam, A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte. Today’s TikTokers’ use screenshots or recordings of people’s bitmojis, Google searches, Google maps, albums and playlists, movie or television scenes, and already known memes.
Pete (@bbydurian) has created a short video on TikTok with music ITs ANIT new girlfriend of your ex. Can you come up with something else!! #greenscreen #patagonia #rei #northface #birkenstocks #hydroflask #environment #environmentalscience #college
Beau Scott (@beauscotty) has created a short video on TikTok with music Ok My turn. call it karma or revenger I lost that game #fyp #foryou #comedy #funny #wholesomeplottwist #CepacolSickBeats #SnickersFixTheWorld #afterthefunction
karina (@stickerslut) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. see y'all in cabin 6 #greenscreen #distorted #MusicalMindReader #whatithought #shoppinghaul #fyp #foryou #camp #seeya
Effects
Art would be boring if it was always true to reality. Artists play with the world around them, breaking established rules and finding themselves in fantastical “what-if” scenarios. In painting, this often involves taking the human body and changing it in some way, often to express emotion or disorder - think The Son of Man, Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, Woman with a Hat, or anything Pablo Picasso.
Effects and filters on TikTok work the same way - they alter one’s body or setting. Take the much-beloved “Distorted” filter which adds an alien-like effect to people’s faces vaguely resembling Edward Munch’s The Scream. Or the “Time Warp” filter, which is used to distort people’s bodies and can be used in a variety of different ways.
Effects can also be used to enhance the aesthetics of a TikTok. For example, there’s “Disco,” which turns a boring bathroom or bedroom background into a vibrant colorful explosion. Or “Earthquake,” which chaotically shakes a video. These can enhance or change the visuals of a scene and add complexity and intricacy to a video.
Adam (@adamkindacool) has created a short video on TikTok with music Wanna be like you Remix. Eve did an oopsie #distortion #foryou #comedy for everyone who tried calling me out on the last one
“Distorted”
Jessome's Slaves (@gostoopidgocrazy69) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. How I was created #foryou #foryoupage #relatable #viral #makemefamous #dna
“Time Warp”
charli d'amelio (@charlidamelio) has created a short video on TikTok with music Wait a Minute!. i'm lonely waiting for my friends but it's okay because we are getting taco bell
“Disco”
Text
One of the main ways TikTok is different from its predecessor Vine (a six-second video looping app) is that users are able to easily add text to their videos directly through the platform. This enables creators to cram more elements into one video, thus making them more complex, layered, and creative. While painters normally don’t use text in their actual paintings, this would be analogous to a painting’s title or its accompanying description or artist statement, which allows viewers to learn about the painting both by seeing it and reading about it, thus engaging more of their senses.
In addition to using text as a caption or description for their videos, creators also make text the focus of their art. For example, one trend, called “character select” or “choose your character” had people explain themselves or others by listing attributes on the side of the TikTok with text like you would see in a video game. Another recent trend uses it to recreate a text conversation on the screen.
Ultimately, text enables people to create content that is both video and writing. It takes elements from both traditional media (newspapers, the internet, magazines) and social media (Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, and Reddit) and creates something totally different and unique.
Tesaro (@tesaro_) has created a short video on TikTok with music I make trendsssss. Carti NO. 9. bro never responded #foryoupage #fyp #BeatTheZombieFunk #gummygame #suchascientist #darkhumour #dinosaur
laurennotborin (@laurennotborin) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. lmao mom come back @lindseylol17 #fyp #foryou #chooseyourcharacter
Dances
Dance is an art form in itself on TikTok - and an extremely popular one. Usually made by smaller creators, dance routines are popularized and modified by bigger TikTokers such as Charli D’Amelio (38 million followers) and Addison Rae (26 million followers). These dances, set to certain songs, are intricate enough that they are visually interesting, but simple enough so that virtually anyone can learn them.
Perhaps the most famous TikTok dance is the “renegade,” invented by 14-year-old Jalaiah Harmon and to the song “Lottery” by K Camp. This dance was modified by other TikTokers and spread like wildfire across the platform - it has since become a significant cultural landmark of this generation.
charli d'amelio (@charlidamelio) has created a short video on TikTok with music Lottery. guys i would like to introduce you to @_.xoxlaii i am so happy that she was able to teach me the original choreography that she made she is the best!
avani (@avani) has created a short video on TikTok with music Say So. 100% with bae 😛 @annieleblanc ( dc: @yodelinghaley )
sharlizetrue_ (@sharlizetrue_) has created a short video on TikTok with music WALKED IN. public school type beat #fyp #dance #favoritefit #viral #rosa
“A Utopian Gen Z Playground”
“TikTok is a safer space where you can post videos about you being yourself, rather than worrying about being perfect.”
Okay, okay, so TikTokers are artists and their work is “art.” But does it really deserve to be considered “art” in the same way that traditionally-renowned sculptures, paintings, poems, and songs are? Well, I would argue, yes.
Let’s go back to that Google definition, the first part of which states that art is “the expression of human creative skill and imagination.” Despite its reputation among many as another time-sucking, brain-rotting, thought-destroying app, TikTokers’ use their palette of tools to create work that requires thought, memory, wondering about the future, making connections, and seeing the world through different lenses and perspectives. Let’s take a look at a couple examples.
Jrod (@bigsexy56) has created a short video on TikTok with music Für Elise. Only the real homies will understand #math #meme #society #minecraft #funny #joke #fyp #xyzbca
This TikTok requires one to have knowledge of mathematics as well as the future of human cities. The user creatively takes a common frustration for someone who is learning math and extrapolates it to the human struggle between advancing our world and simply not knowing enough to do so.
Sydney Cothran (@kidkneesothran) has created a short video on TikTok with music Woahh.
Okay, so this is literally just a TikTok of someone putting shaving cream inside a Croc and then stepping in it - at first, it seems stupid, even evidence of our “declining civilization.” But maybe that's part of its beauty - the creator tried something new, albeit ridiculous, that hadn’t been done before - they saw a situation and curiously thought “what if?” Now that’s creativity.
Obviously, a TikTok from a teen in their bedroom and a painting made during the Renaissance are two very different works of art. But both are art nonetheless - they require the creator to use their creative skill, curiosity, ingenuity and imagination, combine it with technical skill (or “form”), and ultimately, as the last part of the definition states, produce works that can be appreciated for “their beauty or emotional power.”
Another thing that makes TikTok TikTok is the way people make and interact with content on the platform. Unlike Instagram or Snapchat, where people tend to focus on their friends’ content and usually try to present the best parts of their lives, TikTok is all about having fun and seeing what happens. On TikTok, ideas count. And people do what comes naturally to them, sharing their flaws, failures, embarrassing pictures, and off-the-cuff brainstorms. A lot of that content is relatable and funny to the average teen viewer.
People use their connections to others as much as possible - often making TikToks that revolve around common childhood experiences - friend groups, TV shows and movies, struggles with parents or siblings. Because the trials and tribulations of going to school are shared amongst most teenagers, this is also a popular source of content. People share POV’s (point of views) of things their teachers or parents say to them, struggles they have with homework, or reflections about themselves. Common content also revolves around strange or absurd things that people watched or that happened to them as kids, wondering if they were “fever dreams.”
Vox writer Rebecca Jennings describes this part of TikTok as a “utopian Gen Z playground.” In this playground, kids and teens are able to joke around, playing with the elements of their artistic palettes and really, just see what happens. Part of the reason TikTok is so creative is that kids aren’t afraid to make experimental content and have it fail (or “flop,” as it’s known to teens). This approach to creating is encouraged by the TikTok platform, which uses AI to place videos on users’ “For You” page, where they can then blow up. Because kids don’t know exactly what gets them to the For You Page, the holy grail of the platform, they are encouraged to take an experimental approach, seeing what works and what doesn’t. In fact, the amount of effort some will dedicate to making a TikTok, simply because they enjoy it, is astounding.
Ultimately, this experimentation has made TikTok a creative well of quirkiness, chaos, and randomness. Kids’ humor today is often surreal, random, ironic and self-aware - and this is only amplified on TikTok. Creators will often break humor down to its most basic elements - making jokes that they know are very low-level or even nonsensical - but still manage to go viral.
💧Tyree (@lilfigiwater) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. Only older siblings will understand this 😂 #foryou #foryoupage #fyp #fy #foru #scienceismagic #2000s
mark (@snarkymarky) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. POV: you're on the bus ride back to school after a field trip and the teacher is yelling at you because your class is too loud #viral
Triangle (@dancingtriangle) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound.
In part through filters, music, and effects, reality is altered on TikTok. Like surrealist painters Salvador Dali or Andre Breton, TikTokers take the world we know - and transform it.
“Education by Metaphor”
“TikTok creates cultural blurring on an astounding scale. It is an appropriation accelerant.”
Ultimately, however, it is TikTok’s collaborative culture that makes it so different from any other platform. “Great artists steal” is TikTok’s motto.
When a trend pops up, it will gradually percolate into other corners of the platform - and then suddenly it’s everywhere, and in different variations and mutations. For example, the audio “I can’t” was uploaded by user @calebcity to describe what it is like when you don’t have your glasses on. This sound was then adapted by other users to describe what other situations are like.
CalebCity (@calebcity) has created a short video on TikTok with music I can't. Putting your glasses down for 5 SECONDS!
Denzel Agyeman (@denzelagyeman) has created a short video on TikTok with music I can't. Happens at least once a week🤓 #foryoupage #fyp #foryou #comedy #relatable #UNOirl #shoecheck #fitnesstips #ThankUNextSpritz #viral #google #trending
Hannah (@hannahryleee) has created a short video on TikTok with music I can't. 😂😂😂😂
Additionally, people will change original ideas and audio to match different situations. For example, watch below as the sound “still spin the bottle,” was changed to fit different situations. See the progression below:
Foxraine (@jasonbarnesn) has created a short video on TikTok with music still spin the bottle. Best couple on Disney #fyp #foryou #MakeTheLeap #foru #disney #tv #foryoupage
aub (@usernumber550) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. oops i hope this hasn't been done #greenscreen #bachelor #fyp #peter #xyzcba
Baylee Cain (@bkcain) has created a short video on TikTok with music Spin. Then you gotta wear it half wet.. 😭
Taeeeeee (@taesachs) has created a short video on TikTok with music spiderspiderspiderspider. #fyp #worldwildlifeday #MakeTheLeap #spin #foryоu #greenscreen
Users can also “duet” others’ content, which enables them to add their video, text, and perspective simultaneously onto someone else’s.
courtney (@ccoouurtney) has created a short video on TikTok with music hit me baby one more time by ki. #duet with @eyeamki #foryou poor guy :(
It is this continuous copying and pasting and modifying and editing of content that makes TikTok more than simply a fun way for teenagers to pass the time. It is a cultural conduit. It’s, as Richard Dawkins theorized, memetics - like the passing along and mutating of genes - but with ideas instead. It’s creativity, curiosity, and innovation. It’s remix culture - on steroids.
TikTok is an idea factory - it takes in the world, all our childhood memories, every book or tweet we’ve ever read, every picture we’ve ever taken, every conversation we’ve ever had, every future we’ve ever dreamed of - and jumbles it up and spits it out, repackaging it for someone new to see and understand and take into their lives.
In 1931, poet Robert Frost gave a talk at Amherst College called “Education by Poetry.” In this talk, he argues for the importance of teaching poetry. He states that education by poetry is education by metaphor and that it “goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have.” He states how all thinking we have (except, perhaps, mathematical) breaks down to metaphors - science, physics, evolution. He states the importance of learning metaphor, in learning “saying one thing in terms of another,” if you are to survive as a human in this world.
In essence, TikTok is a sort of new-age poetry class. It's metaphor. It’s making meaning of our world through comparison and analogy. It’s being able to understand things through other things. It helps address “the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents,” as H.P. Lovecraft opens in The Call of Cthulhu. And, ultimately, it’s what gets us to the other definition of art, found through that same Google search.
“A Bottomless Gumball Machine”
“There’ve always been socialites, people of influence, the Paris World’s Fair. Whatever mecca that people go to fo culture is where they go to for culture, and in this moment it’s TikTok.”
Adam Friedman, Music Producer
Art is the “subjects of study primarily concerned with the processes and products of human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history” (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects). TikTok is an exploration and a perversion of all these realms of human life.
TikTok provides an alternative option to the traditional teenage social life. On TikTok, people feel comfortable interacting with complete strangers like they would with their friends - something impossible to do on Instagram, for example. Many users will make posts asking others to drop their Snapchats - and then they will form group chats. People will post tutorials and crafts, song and outfit inspiration, help each other with homework, or even find prom dates or people to hang out with. Even top creators such as Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Lil Huddy, and Addison Rae will often like and respond to users’ comments, which would be rare on any other platform given the number of followers they have.
Moreover, the app gives people who have unique styles or personalities and may not have fit in at their schools a chance to find an audience. On TikTok, you will find “e-girls,” which, according to Vox writer Rebecca Jennings, refers to girls who have specific hairstyles, makeup, and fashion based on “skate culture, hip-hop, cosplay, BDSM, and goth.” Their male counterparts are “e-boys,” who often wear chains, the color black, striped shirts, and middle-parted hair and draw influences from Mac Demarco, Brockhampton, Tyler the Creator, and Rex Orange County. You will also find “soft girls,” girls who embrace “hair clips, soft colors, mom jeans, glossy lips and overall just a dreamy vibe,” according to the 14-year-old creator of the subreddit r/softgirls.
In fact, TikTok plays a huge role in influencing what is “cool.” In addition to spreading music and dances, it also helps change communication, spreading popular sayings, which then become common not just in captions and comments, but in real-life dialogue as well. Common sayings that have originated or been popularized on TikTok include “no cap”, “vibe check,” “and I oop,” “simp,” and “CEO of ___”. The list goes on. TikTok also influences which emojis are popular: 😳,🤡,👉👈, and 💀 are a few. It has also influenced what movies are TV shows people watch, what apps people use, what celebrities are popular, and what different fashion trends and aesthetics they follow. For example, color-changing LED strip lights have become popular because of TikTok, and are now a common sight in any trendsetting teenager’s bedroom. Thanks to TikTok, bleach tie-dyed Walmart sweats, thrifting, art projects, and Brandy Melville skirts are now all the epitome of cool.
👼🏻 (@oliviarcollis) has created a short video on TikTok with music THINKIN BOUT U frank ocean remix. hi #SnickersFixTheWorld #showerthoughts #fyp #aesthetic
TikTok users also work with and expand upon more established forms of culture - media, history, and current beliefs and events. For example, TikTok has democratized film criticism, with many commenting on movies or using them to fit their own ideas. For example, in one TikTok, user @kikisadingus shows the movie Tall Girl, in which the main character says “You think your life is hard? I’m a high school junior wearing size 13 Nikes. Men’s size 13 Nikes,” takes her wig off, and says “I have cancer.” According to The New York Times writer Calum Marsh, teens have also worked with It Chapter Two, Us, and Hereditary.
kiki kitsinis (@kikisadingus) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. wanna swap? #tallgirl #hoco #cursedtiktoks #SavingsShuffle #fyp
Teens’ understanding of history is also expanded upon on TikTok - and it provides an alternative to learning it that doesn’t involve trudging through hundreds of pages of their high school history textbooks. They post about American history, world history, forgotten history - anything. And their videos help simplify concepts and lead to productive discussions in the comments section. This understanding of their world bleeds into the modern era - with continuous discussions about politics, climate change, gender roles, and race.
But I think TikTok goes even further than being just art. It is an experiment in the future, one that shows what happens when humanity meets technology - what happens we let artificial intelligence shape the media we consume. It democratizes storytelling - it lets more people share their opinions and influence the world. It is the antidote to the traditional cultural and artistic cannon - which, as The New York Times writer Aisha Harris describes, “has been the province almost exclusively of white men.” By allowing more people to get creators, you get an explosion of perspectives and culture.
In 2012, Mike Rugnetta described in a video for the PBS idea channel that memes and the internet were on their way to creating a “cultural singularity,” in which culture essentially regenerates itself, and it is impossible to distinguish where a meme or idea came from - I think TikTok is an even truer realization of this - memes propagate at an intensely fast rate - and this process is only accelerating. As TV Critic and The New York Times writer James Poniewozik writes, “It’s a bottomless gumball machine, serving up ephemeral treats.”
When I interviewed Dr. Marcel Danesi, professor of Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Toronto, he posed me with a question: “Does anyone remember or care what was on TikTok a week or even a day ago?” He said it was rhetorical, but I’ll answer it anyway:
No. We don’t - or at least very rarely. But I don’t necessarily think that’s all the app’s fault. I think, in fact, if we want TikTok to influence us positively, we need to engage with it more. Instead of just brushing it off as some teenage time-wasting tool, let’s actually treat it as an important, ever-changing piece of culture, and let the discussions flow from there. In fact, it could help us address our most pressing issues - and advance as a civilization.
So, let’s talk about TikTok. Show one to your professor, your mom, your best friend, your grandparents - and ask them what they think. You never know what might come of it.