

Polanco, 29, is Ecuadorian and Chinese and was penniless, couch-surfing and performing on street corners and his YouTube channel when a performance on TikTok went viral and allowed him to monetize his page. New Yorker and self-taught beatboxer “Spencer X” Polanco, was the 8 th most followed person on the platform (according to ) in summer 2021. Feroza Aziz, Spencer “Spencer X” Polanco and Deja Foxx are TikTok’ers who are all earning money on the app, but 2 are also using the platform to raise awareness for social issues close to their heart.

“TikTok, Boom” introduces us to three of its digital natives – the new term for young people who have never known a world without social media –and explores what life is like for them. Content creators and influencers with a following are also bringing in some cash. But brands and TikTok aren’t the only ones making money. The platform attracts 2 billion eyeballs per month and brands are drooling to get some of those eyeballs trained on them, amounting to nearly $4 billion in ad sales dollars for Byte Dance in 2021 ().

Data is the new oil and China is the new Saudi Arabia.īrands use this information to pinpoint ads with precision. And what does Beijing–owned TikTok and parent company Byte Dance do with all of this very personal data about you? They sell it, of course. So, if you’re 14, that’s almost all of your life. They have amassed a staggering amount of profile data about you since the first day you downloaded the app. They know what you want before you know you want it. TikTok knows more about what you like than you do. The fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying….” It basically makes a fingerprint of your taste and then presents you with very personalized videos tailored to that taste on its “For You” page.Ībout TikTok’s fingerprinting technology, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman likened it to “spyware” in 2020, saying: “I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening. Most social media apps use similar technology, but none as precise as TikTok. It “learns” from these reactions and uses that data to fine-tune which videos it shows or recommends to you. It watches how you react to each piece of content even using changes in facial expression among other criteria. Using a machine learning recommendation algorithm, the app is built to watch you as you watch content on the platform.
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With 1/3 of its audience under the age of 14, TikTok has learned how to target young people with precision. Gen Z is the first generation to grow up in the age of social media, giving rise to the first generation of social media influencers. It examines the history-making, addictive app and its problematic hold on Gen Z’ers worldwide. Documentary Competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film is TikTok explained in layman’s terms. Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya’s documentary “TikTok, Boom” made its debut in the U.S. Today it is only second in downloads to Meta’s Instagram. The app was the most downloaded of 2021 and is the fastest growing social media platform of all time with 3 billion-plus monthly active users (). Silly dance fails and challenges are what initially drives viewers, both young and old to the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok.
