TikTok Newsletter 68
So at first, I, too, was entertained
Hello,
this is Understanding TikTok – your weekly TikTok update. My name is Marcus.
I covered the allegedly russian propaganda TikTok story in Sweden last week (#67). Berit Glanz (german) and Ryan Broderick (english) have written about this too. Conclusion: “The videos teenagers are seeing 👺 are, in many instances, literally just screenshots or clips created 🪞by their own news outlets.”
Today we talk about:
🕍 Holocaust Remembrance
🪅 Features. Maybe. More Features
🧢 West. Elm. Caleb.
🌴 Future X, Island Boys and more
🕍 Holocaust Remembrance
Nearly one in three young Germans holds antisemitic attitudes, World Jewish Congress (WJC) survey finds. At the same time, knowledge about the Holocaust is dwindling. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day Jan. 27 WJC & UNESCO partnered with TikTok to offer comprehensive Holocaust education resources.
Followed by a broad press coverage and debate (FAZ, BellTower, Jüdische Allgemeine) several Holocaust memorials and museums in Germany and Austria have started TikTok accounts to reach and educate a younger audience. With the help of Tobias Hartmann and Tom Divon from Hebrew University Jerusalem, Felix Schulz, NGO AJC, two agencies and TikTok these institutions are on TikTok now:
Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen. Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück. Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen. Haus der Wannseekonferenz. Jüdisches Museum Berlin. KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau. KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg. KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme. Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft (EVZ). Villa ten Hompel.
Most accounts probably need more adaption of platform specific design elements in order to attract a broader audience. But i for one applaud the initiative and hope to see them strive. TikTok for sure can be a fantastic place for learning and for exchange and dialogue. Here is 98-year-old Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert & her great grandson Dov Forman (1.6M Follower 23.5M Likes).
🪅 Features. Maybe. More Features
TikTok is yet again building and testing a number of new features and nobody knows if we will see any of them in our actual daily usage.
But if you are into speculations or generally like the idea of more features, here you go: TikTok is working on a TikTok Avatars feature, TikTok is working on a LinkedIn-like Profile Views feature, TikTok is testing “Background audio”, TikTok is working on a new option “Videos”, TikTok is exploring a Group chat feature, Audio-only live feature, and TikTok may be working on a screen-sharing feature for livestreams, TikTok is testing support for paid subscriptions.
All news from the last couple of days. Here is a SocialMediaToday-article, here is Techcrunch. Or you just follow Matt Navarra and Hammod Oh.
🧢 West. Elm. Caleb.
It all began on January 11. Since then things around a tall guy in New York named Caleb working as a designer for West Elm Furniture have escalated quickly. Today a search on Google News led to 97.700 results “West Elm Caleb” compared to 63.600 results “"Charli D'Amelio".
I compiled the story for you – using only quotes from a range of articles and blog posts.
“It began on January 11, when popular TikTok user Mimi Shou posted a video in which she joked about getting ghosted by a tall guy named Caleb. It turned out that wasn’t the West Elm Caleb, but she received a myriad of comments from other women asking if it was, leading her to make another video warning viewers about him. This kickstarted a chain reaction that quickly spread all across social media. (GQ)
So at first, I, too, was entertained by West Elm Caleb. (Embedded)
Something got out of hand, fast. (Buzzfeed)
The result is a chain of memeification, where the person becomes a metaphor for something larger. (Washington Post)
The power of TikTok’s incredibly specific algorithm has turned him into a spectacle and a symbol: a stand-in for all the crappy men who have genuinely and truly hurt the women they’ve dated over the years. (Slate)
TikTok is designed to capitalize on your attention, to entertain. This means transforming the real to the unreal at the pace the crowd demands and turning the private into performance. (Wired)
Therein lies the crux of the problem with the furore surrounding West Elm Caleb, that he – as many seem to have forgotten – is an IRL person. (Dazed)
There is just simply no way to use TikTok without being influenced by its extremely aggressive algorithm which we’re learning trends towards violence. (Garbage Day)
i can’t help but feel as though self-policing measures of social control are being Trojan-Horsed into our cultural consciousness through lighthearted girl-power narratives about mean boys and unfaithful partners. we are building the panopticon every day, and feminism is being commodified and bastardized to support it. (internet princess)
“West Elm Caleb” may be one of the latest trends to take social media by storm, but that doesn't mean brands necessarily should hop on it. (AdAge)
What else?
Future X
Simon Fuller has created Pop Idol and American Idol, managed the Spice Girls and has been certified as the most successful British music manager of all time by Billboard magazine. In 2020, Fuller signed an exclusive agreement with tech firm TikTok to create a new TikTok supergroup. (BBC)
It is called The Future X (37.5K Followers 173.3K Likes), their debut single, This Kind Of Love, is due next month. And the whole project is doomed to be successful. Somehow, somewhere. Will it be? Probably. The project is too big to fail. The single is catchy of course, but the entire project imho is lacking a much needed dose of realness and authentic authenticity. We’ll see.
Island Boys
The Island Boys duo, Kodiayakredd (real name Franky Venegas) and Flyysoulja (Alex Venegas) blew up on TikTok last year for their poolside song “I’m an Island Boy”. But why do US troops keep paying them for military shoutout videos? (Task & Purpose) TikTok-famous 'Island Boys' promote Army recruitment in Cameo. (NBC)
Donate Data
”Ever wondered how TikTok recommends videos? We are conducting a research study to understand recommendations by asking people to donate their TikTok data!” We in this case means Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, TU Delft and University of Washington. More infos can be found here.
Algorithmic Oppression
TikTok's use of shadowbanning and algorithmic oppression—directed at disabled, queer, and trans users—complicates TikTok's narrative of advocacy and visibility. This censorship is not accidental. Algorithms are always programmed by people. First published in 2022, LGBTQ Digital Cultures looks like a good read, including a chapter on TikTok.
Stealth Marketing
The Japan operator of the popular Chinese video-sharing app TikTok said it paid 20 social media influencers to spread certain videos on Twitter between July 2019 to December last year, using a strategy that could be considered as stealth marketing. (Kyodo News)
Pay Up
TikTok may have to change its creator funding model because several high-profile creators have started questioning the monetization options and highlighted key flaws in the current process of payout that the platform has been following. (Dazeinfo)
Debunking
When Your Doctor Is on TikTok, On a platform rife with falsehoods, a cohort of health-care professionals has stepped in to correct them. (The Atlantic)
Speak soon. Ciao
