RGS Digital Parenting - Edition 4

THE HAIRBRUSH FOR

GENERATION Z

BY SIMON HARDING

W

hatever your era, it’s almost a certainty that you picked up a hairbrush one day, cranked up the music and pretended you were the front man – or woman – of your favourite band. You probably had the moves too!

It’s something that’s brought us an immense amount of pleasure and some great big-screen moments too; think Muriel’s Wedding

and Wayne’s World. Think Tom Cruise in Risky Business. And let’s not forget Hugh Grant’s almost cringe-worthy shuffle through a supposedly sleeping

10 Downing Street in Love Actually. It’s all – well, fun.

And that’s what today’s teens see in TikTok, an app for creating and watching short-form mobile videos.

Sure, it’s far more public than anything most of us ever did with a hairbrush, but it’s highly engaging and allows them to just enjoy being creative.

Lots of people, mostly kids, produce videos of themselves miming to songs, performing comedy skits or taking up challenges, and post them online. Typically, these videos are up to 15 seconds long, though they can be merged to make them longer. The app has a database of songs, effects and soundbites, with which users can make their content look almost professional.