The Four Hundred: 15 Seconds of Fame, How Tik Tok is Changing the Music Industry
tik tok
If you type in “Tik Tok song” into Google Search, Ke$ha’s 2009 hit song will not be the first result. Instead, 46 other songs will pop up, including singles like “Say So” by Doja Cat, “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, and “The Box”, by rapper Roddy Rich.
So, what changed?
Why do we associate names like Charli D’Amelio, David Dobrik, and Addison Rae with the phrase “Tik Tok”, rather than Ke$ha herself?
The answer lies within the App Store.
Tik Tok is the reincarnation of Musical.ly, a Beijing-based social-networking platform where users created lip-synching videos. Rebranded by the technology company ByteDance, Tik Tok has now become a hit social media sensation. Instead of focusing on only basic lip-synching videos, Tik Tok centers around the creation of dance routines and comedic skits, as well as interacting with music.
Tik Tok has made its mark on the world, especially because of the coronavirus pandemic. Just this April, Tik Tok reportedly had the best economic quarter of any mobile app in history. With a mission to "inspire creativity and bring joy," Tik Tok has been downloaded 2 billion times globally through Google Play and the App Store.
With a surplus of downloads and flourishing celebrities profiting off the interaction of songs created by often behind-the-scenes musicians, Tik Tok is undoubtedly making strides in the music industry.
You cannot watch a Tik Tok without the sound because within the app, the music is ubiquitous and the soul of these videos.
Music drives the creative flows behind these dances
Tik Tok videos, which are limited to quick, 15 to 30-second clips, enable every user to be a creator. As the platform takes the world by storm, Tik Tok remains a networking application that values originality and authenticity within the created content.
Tik Tok has fostered an environment for different music genres to thrive due to the numerous ways users interact with music through the app.
For instance, Tik Tok has popularized the various creations and recreations of dance numbers, where a dance routine is created to a chunk of a song, and other users make and share choreography with the hopes of going viral.
And with a global pandemic on our hands, Tik Tok users are eager to delve into the somewhat simple, quick dances that serve as the perfect social tool while under lockdown.
(Credit Doja Cat via Youtube) Doja Cat in her iconic music video “Say So”
"Say So," a song by American singer and rapper, Doja Cat, came out in 2019 but went viral after Tik Tok user, Haley Sharpe (@yodelinghaley), posted a video of her original dance to the upbeat song.
The dance was trending not just because "Say So" is catchy, but also due to how easy the dance can be learned and recreated: with a few punches, a swing of the hips, and a body roll, other Tik Tok dancers can do the routine. These dance challengers quickly are shared, and later go viral.
As of March 2020, "Say So" has reached 3.554 million streams and cinched number seven on the global Spotify charts.
Thus, although these dance challenges or lip-synching videos employ a few seconds of a song's hook, they inspire many to create a similar video with the same sound, making it easier than usual for an artist's work to be noticed. All Thanks to the Tik Tok population.
With a global pandemic locking them down, worldwide, the youth are turning to Tik Tok for entertainment
Additionally, Tik Tok has become a vehicle for up-and-coming artists' debuts or even older songs to be reintroduced back into society. Even the twelve-year-old who I babysit knows J-Boog's infamous 2011 hit, "Let's Do It Again," solely because of it being popularized as a Tik Tok dance.
"Let's Do It Again" has been performed by Tik Tok influencer Charlie D'Amelio and even by childhood celebrities like Ashley Tisdale, who co-starred in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, a Disney sitcom which debuted in 2005.
With the surge of recent musical popularity accredited to Tik Tok, musical artists are considering if they should utilize the app as a marketing tool.
Consequently, Tik Tok creators have gauged which of their music has the highest capability to go viral, based upon how catchy it is. Then, artists engage with their audience by creating a dance or lip-synch challenge, accompanied by hashtags, for the Tik Tok world to consume.
Tik Tok's algorithm makes it easy for a Tik Tok user, regardless of their following, to receive lots of views on their content.
Like most popularized applications, the key to Tik Tok's success is accredited to a carefully constructed algorithm. Besides a page to see what friends, family, and celebrities you follow have posted, Tik Tok also has a "For You" page.
Tik Tok’s algorithm feeds data to the For You Page, which then curates content for it’s viewers
The "For You" page is a separate feed that specifically curates content to your account, based on your location, profile, and similar information based upon past Tik Tok videos you may have previously engaged with.
Through the "For You" page, users receive a stream of new content, involving new-found music or artists, or even throwback hits.
Unlike other social-networking feeds like Instagram or Twitter, it is impossible to be "all caught up" because Tik Tok feeds endless content to its users. This content is perfectly customized to a user's behavioral patterns within the app: whether it may be whatever sounds, hashtags, or videos they watch again and again.
It may seem accidental, but Tik Tok's algorithm is strategic. It's meant to be addicting.
Despite Tik Toks’ convenience and breadth of audience, there lie certain downsides for trending artists. On Tik Tok, it's possible for a user to create an “original sound” that can be used by others by clicking on the sound and filming a video.
Yet the problem with these original sounds is that they are often used with a trending song in the background, or even with the trending song acting as the entire “original sound”. The enigma within the “original sound” is whether or not it is ethical for an artist's music to be used.
When an original sound is used, the “creator” of that sound, meaning the Tik Tok user, is given credit, rather than the musician. Thus, trending songs are often known by the chorus and the lyrics, with the actual “owner” of that song unknown and lacking credit.
While Tik Tok may not be the be-all, end-all for the music industry, the app is certainly a tangible vehicle for self-promotion and fame, if used correctly.
Take Tik Tok influencer Mxmtoom, for instance. Mxmtoom, otherwise known as Maia, is a 19-year-old singer who, besides using YouTube to generate a following, has exploded in popularity due to Tik Tok.
After downloading the app and creating videos of what she describes as "sad uke music you cry to" and "rhyming diary entries," Maia and her ukulele have made strides in the Tik Tok world. Her single, "prom dress" has been used in over 50,000 Tik Tok videos after she created a singing challenge to her song. Mxmtoom is a prime example of up-and-coming artists that use Tik Tok as a marketing platform.
(Credit Mxmtoon) A promotional photo for Mxmtoon’s song, “Prom Dress”
The young, aspiring artist accredits Tik Tok to her fame and admits that it is now a big part of her persona and platform, even saying that fans would yell to her to "do a Tik Tok dance" when performing.
Today, Mxmtoom has 3.6 million listeners on Spotify and over 15 million views on the official "prom dress" video on YouTube.
With Tik Tok quickly becoming a prominent platform for musicians and Tik Tok creators alike, the app is changing how users digest and discover trending songs. As a marketing platform, it is possible that Tik Tok will cause a surge in popularity for up-and-coming artists if they are able to manipulate the “For You” page and take advantage of the length of the videos by using the catchiest portions of their songs.
For those who do not use Tik Tok, they, in a sense, are living in a different realm than the rest of society. Rather than associating these songs on the radio with their trending presence on Tik Tok, those individuals are behind the learning curve and are not exposed to an entirely different dimension of the music.
As a platform, Tik Tok is changing the music industry as well as dividing a musician’s societal audience, between those who spend time scrolling on a “For You” page and those who do not.
