Sophia Henry | A&E Editor
Tik Tok is a social media platform created by a Chinese company called ByteDance. It came out in September in 2016, after being combined with music.ly and some could say the world was never the same since. New celebrities like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae came out of the woodwork because people liked their dances, and now they are in movies and have their own television shows. Soon like any other social media platform new trends became a thing, and new references and inside jokes were formed. Now you can ask the question “is it a bones day?” and people will only understand if they are on Tik Tok. Something so simple though it is also helping people cope better with their mental health. Learning to take a break on a no bones day, and have more energy on a bones day, and its all based on a little thirteen year old pug named Noodle. Heres a link explaining what I am talking about if your lost: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/10/25/noodle-tiktok-bones-day.
But then there is the other side of Tik Tok, the educational side where doctors are posting videos answering questions that their viewers are too afraid to ask, or content creators come out about their abusers and commenters let them know how they can relate and how they are empathetic.
Then we have Astroworld, a music festival in which many concert goers died or got injured during Travis Scott’s set and many people are coming out on Tik Tok discussing their experience with it, along with people who were medics or security. We have him being compared to other musical artists who seem to actually respect their audiences and care for their safety. Although they could post this on any social media they chose Tik Tok because it is a video making platform and one of the more popular ones right now.
I think this just all shows the power of Tik Tok and social media in general. Social media has been teaching us how important taking care of mental health is, and things like people going live for virtual “study halls” to help students and themselves get through their school work in bite sized pieces as well as stay off their phones.
Due to all of this colleges now offer classes like social media management or digital marketing because not only is social media a place for people to post about their daily life but its also a place for brands to post about their companies and how influencers get employed by social media. Its why your favorite Youtuber will have a sponsorship before their video and a coupon code. Social media is constantly taking the world by storm and I’m hoping as time goes on it’s doing more better than worse. Helping content creators be creative, helping audiences be informed and altogether keeping society connected in a positive way.