#122: What's Going On
Horizontal Video, Silence, and Bikini Bottom News
Hello.
You are reading Understanding TikTok. My name is Marcus. Way too much happening in tech rn my head hurts tweets Jules Terpak. Meanwhile i am making my way through an army of Apple Glasses Tech Bros in Teslas, thinking of Max Read’s take on Kyle Chayka, listening to Aphex Twin’s Syro. Cover image by Matthias Bitzer.
📽️ Horizontal Video Syndrome
🤫 TikTok vs. Universal
🎣TikTok News Anchor
🤹 Ch-ch-challenges
Is 2024 TikTok’s most challenging year yet, asks Krystal Scanlon for Digiday and unpicks challenges that TikTok faces in 2024. They basically all circle around the problem on how to grow and capitalize an evolving platform in a highly competitive hyper-capitalist environment without alienating your users (NYT) but keeping them engaged, diversifying usage in a multi-screen environment while including ever-changing technological ideas and concepts (AI) while not getting banned in key markets etc. Large parts here rely on trial and error. TikTok Testing Whether Users Will Put Up With Every Video Being an Ad (Gizmodo). Remember when TikTok wanted to start selling TikTok burgers?
📽️ Horizontal Video Syndrome
Vertical video platform TikTok wants users to turn their phones around and start shooting horizontal videos — long ones, too (The Verge). Wait, what?
Ten years ago a number of independent film and video makers made the creative jump to vertical video formats for narrative films while so called Mobile Reporting Trainers (i was one of them) for some time kept telling you that “vertical video is bad for you”. With the Apple Vision Pro in stores we can finally conclude that video in the 21st century is horizontal, vertical, round (remember Spectacles) or 360 (remember Insta 360 Nano) depending on your device in a multi screen environment.
TikTok goes full YouTube, spotted testing 30-minute uploads (Techcrunch). This totally makes sense given TikTok’s strategy to move past the mobile screen. People watch videos—and ads—on bigger screens (Marketing Brew). And usage trends suggest social video consumption, particularly on TikTok, is approaching parity with traditional video entertainment (TV shows and movies) consumed on SVOD or FAST services (Variety). Compare #116.
🤫 TikTok vs. Universal
Ssshhhh. It’s oh so quiet on the platform after Universal Music Group (UMG) – the world’s largest music company – has started removing the music catalogs of performers the label represents (including Taylor Swift, Drake, and Olivia Rodrigo) from TikTok after negotiations to renew licensing agreements broke down (The Verge). It is yet unclear how this power battle plays out. It is an example of a conflict that has played out repeatedly in the media business over the last couple of decades, in which the innovations of tech companies has run up against the music industry’s demands for control and fair compensation. This tension has been a driving force in the music industry, from Napster and YouTube to Pandora and, now, TikTok (NYT).
🎣TikTok News Anchor
The Economist has a piece on news creators on the platform: "It seems that creators have merely figured out how to tune people back in to news stories that outlets have been reporting on the whole time, just in ways that feel more relevant and real to young internet users". Well, yes.
I particularly like the use case of @dailyfishtoknews, an account that was started on January 19 and has already acquired 127.9K Followers and 2.9M Likes referencing Bikini Bottom News from American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants one of the most important shows to generation Z and their popular culture. The approach to pair actual news with the visual look and feel of a fictional series with a talking fish mimicking a talking human head while probably criticizing the concept of 20st century TV news on a meta-level is intriguing – at least for a short while - but just like the Simpsons got “it” right time after time why not listen to a fish or a lobster.
🧭 Status Update
Just if you want to know what i am currently wrapping my head around concerning TikTok. Happy to help or to discuss your ideas:
…started a research project on thirst trap propaganda on TikTok together with Tom Divon. We have a first abstract and have submitted it to a conference. Cross your fingers. Thanks!
…writing a briefing on why Germany’s right-wing/extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) is so successful on TikTok for a German Labour union.
….preparing inputs on how to successfully run political party accounts on TikTok for a European political party.
…consulting a German public broadcaster who is re-launching its journalistic TikTok channels.
…thinking about a book chapter on TikTok journalism and disinformation that i promised to write.
🍟 La More
Mob Wife Aesthetic (NYT)
Interview with trend forecaster Molly Rooyaakers (Burn After Reading)
The complicated lives and deaths of TikTok’s illness influencers (Vox)
Most StockTok advice is misleading (Fast Company)
Minors exposed to mass shooter glorification (ISD)
Anti-China TikTok Panic (Vice)
One platform – TikTok – stands out for growth of its user base (PEW)
So you want to be an artist. Do you have to start a TikTok? (Vox)
Government-backed group pushing meat on Gen Z (Politico)
TikTok to Open LA Studio for Livestream Sales (The Wrap)
TikTok Struggles to Protect U.S. Data From Its China Parent (WSJ)
Google showing TikTok videos in featured snippets (SEL)
What TikTok activism says about Democrats’ 2024 chances (WaPo)
Thanks for reading. Speak soon. Ciao.