A New Path to Fame How TikTok has completely changed the world of social media BY SARAH ST. JOHN AND AVERY NELSON
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here’s a celebrity in Valley’s midst. A quick tap of a button was all it took for him to gain his massive following. Peter Twetten can be spotted around school, or he might even be found scrolling through the “For You Page” on the wildly popular, teendominated app known as TikTok. Twetten, tagged “@petey” on the platform, has amassed over 100.4K followers — a number growing rapidly. The sophomore has already had multiple company sponsorships and has even been recognized in public by fans. “I made one video and it went kind of viral.” Twetten said. “I would get DM’s on Instagram from random people, and I’d be like, ‘Oh cool, these people are DM-ing me off of TikTok because they like my videos.’ It got me really excited. It pushes me to start creating more videos and more content.” With more than 500 million monthly active users, 42% of them being between the ages of 16 and 24, TikTok is producing some of this generation’s most famous faces. 4
NOVEMBER 2019
The app that lets its users create and watch short lip-sync videos has made it easy for teens to make it big overnight. Twetten started making videos about 2 years ago, before the platform had really gotten off its feet, but soon deleted his work when it didn’t gain much attention. He started making
It got me really excited. It pushes me to start creating more videos and more content.” more videos over the summer, which is the time his account truly began to blow up. Twetten isn’t the only one to find fame on the app. Junior Nick Shiavone (@nick_shiavone) has 12.9k followers, and his most famous video accumulated over 2.5 million
views. The sound he used to create the viral short has also gained significant popularity and can be heard in the background of many famous creators’ videos. “It’s different because you have people from everywhere looking at your stuff,” Shivaone said. “So it’s not just your friends. Anybody can look at it from everywhere.” While making your profile “private” on TikTok is possible, it is a much less common practice as it is on other social media platforms. Many people opt to keep their profiles public to allow their videos to show up on the “For You” page. “The videos are so entertaining when you’re bored,” sophomore Sasha Biesecker said. “You can swipe through them and they just keep coming, which makes it really addicting.” The “For You Page,” which uses algorithms to sort through millions of videos, displays a never-ending feed of suggested content ranging from comedic shorts to viral dance trends. “TikTok will put the video on, say, twenty people’s ‘For You Pages.’
