The International Olympic Committee has a youth obsession and video sharing platform TikTok looks set to play a crucial role. Vimal Sankar charts the rise of the latest social media phenomenon.
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orniness inside the Olympic Village has been an open secret for many years. From the hundreds of right-swipes on Tinder at the infamous Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics to the recordbreaking 450,000 condoms distributed at the Rio 2016 Summer Games, there have been plenty of stories to support the rumours of debauchery. It is quite natural that these athletes, among the fittest people on the planet and at their physical peak, tend to get frisky when they come together every four years, especially considering the enormous pressure they are under to deliver. That they are all humans first, with urges like everyone else, is a fact often forgotten in the quest for glory. This is why, when Tokyo hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games last year in unprecedented circumstances because of the
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coronavirus pandemic, organisers were very specific about the social distancing protocols. It meant that athletes had to avoid "unnecessary forms of physical contact", which was a new and indirect way of telling them to keep it in their pants. Another new element at the Tokyo Games was the presence of the hugely popular Chinese social media platform TikTok, a video sharing app and something that a majority of the International Olympic Committee’s beloved Gen Z fans live and breathe by. Together, the two new elements may have played a vital role in setting a trend for the consumption of Olympic Games content in the years to come. It all started with the rumours of cardboard beds, dubbed as the "anti-sex beds", at the Tokyo Athletes’ Village.
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