Social distancing has allowed for a lot more downtime. TikTok is blowing up with more users and views joining the platform.

TikTok originally came out in 2016. It is an app where users can upload short videos for entertainment.

Musical.ly was a similar app that came out in 2014, the two apps were direct competitors.  Musical.ly was originally the more preferred until TikTok’s creators announced that they had over 500 million users a month in 2017.

The two apps merged under one name, TikTok. In 2018 Musical.ly officially shut down with its content being transferred to TikTok.

When first downloading you may find it a little boring or repetitive. But since you start liking and skipping over what you don’t like, it can become pretty addicting. With a wide variety of content, there’s a little bit of something for everyone. 

Tips for TikTok:

• Like Posts!: Millions of people may view a video, but only thousands may actually like the post. The app recommends similar videos to the ones you’ve liked under the “For You” page.
• TikTok highlights its top creators, leaving its smaller creators in the dark. Liking the content of the smaller guys helps them get noticed.
• If you want to upload videos to TikTok, there really isn’t much work to it. People post videos about everyday things. All that matters is what you want to post.
• For editing TikToks, many users would recommend using apps or another platform outside of TikTok for the best edits.

Jera Foster-Fell, a social media influencer, uploads tips on how to make TikToks. She shares tips on how to catch more attention and make videos more appealing. Her page is @jera.bean with 238.3k followers.

Many smaller creators have been uploading their talents on the app to show what they’ve been doing since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sarah, who goes by @officalhambly is currently at 1.8 million followers and growing. She’s been making short videos on her latest project, Elsa’s dress from Frozen 2. 

Koalipops is run by @johndenim who makes cake videos. Some of his most famous uploads are of the Baby Yoda cake or the KFC bucket chicken. One of their most recent videos was of a cake modeling the COVID-19 Virus. 

TikTok has created large opportunities for its creators, who are now gaining attention from mainstream media. Charlie D’Amelio is only 15 years old and has acquired over 40 million followers within a year. She has gotten to know big celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and been invited to speak on various talk shows.

D’Amelio had received criticism in February for not crediting a popular dance, the Renegade, to its original creator Jalaiah Harmon. D’Amelio had received enormous amounts of fame for this dance, but Harmon had received her credit after D’Amelio’s backlash.  

Harmon was welcomed onto The Ellen DeGeneres Show and performed the Renegade in front of millions of viewers.

TikTok is simple and fun. While the world is going through this pandemic, there are still little outlets people can look towards for some pass time.