5 minute read
A New Path to Fame
There’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.
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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. 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 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.’ It got me really excited. It pushes me to start creating more videos and more content.” BY SARAH ST. JOHN AND AVERY NELSON How TikTok has completely changed the world of social media
Those twenty people will automatically see it, and if those people like it, comment on it, share or duet in some way, then it spreads and spreads until people stop liking it,” Twetten explained. “Basically, you’re already on the “For You Page” in some way, but to get big, you need a lot of people to like your video.” As is for most things, there is a downside to this newfound fame. While many users decide to publicly share their videos with millions of strangers who consume content on the app, sharing with their family and friends proves to be more difficult.
Twetten can attest to this, but finds that the positive outweighs the negative when it comes to someone stumbling across his account.
While keeping up with a rapidly growing fanbase may sound like it would be a stressful task, Twetten doesn’t let it take over his life. He says he only will post once a night if he has a busy schedule.
The End of TikTok?
Vine, a similar short video sharing app that was wildly popular in 2013, was also responsible for producing many new celebrities and countless references. The Twitterowned company was shut down in 2016 due to financial reasons, leaving its users disappointed and without a way to share their short-form videos. TikTok seemed to fill that void in recent months, but this only begs the question: Will TikTok meet the same demise?
Over the last few weeks, TikTok has raised some concerns about its security. According to an article from CNN Business, “US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle warn that the app could pose a national security risk, and are calling on regulators and intelligence agencies to investigate TikTok’s ties to China.”
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), who addresses concerns similar to this, has begun an examination on the Chinese-owned company, ByteDance, and TikTok. Previously, “The CFIUS tended to focus on companies with military or intelligence connections, according to The Washington Post, “but today, personal data and high-tech intellectual property are of greater concern.”
TikTok’s policy states that they collect information such as IP address, browsing history, location, the content of messages sent through the app, and your contacts. TikTok claims that the data it collects from users in America, stay here, but according to CBS News, “TikTok would still have to comply with Chinese laws, which say companies must support intelligence work by the country’s ruling Communist Party.”
The best-case scenario for TikTok would be for CFIUS to conclude that they do not pose a threat to national security, and everything will continue as normal. The worst-case scenario, however, would be for the CFIUS to demand divestment, or the selling of minor assets, which could result in the rebranding to be reversed and the app going back to Music.ly. The most likely situation, according to the Washington Post, is that TikTok will have to meet mitigation agreements or requirements they must follow to settle any security concerns.
