TikTok: Powerful Perceptions Through Consumption of Media

In our current day and age, the use of the internet and social media is inescapable. It seems that every other reference relates to something that was seen on an app or online. These new platforms have given our society new lenses to view the ongoings of our world, creating both positive and negative outcomes. Nearly two billion people use at least one form of social media throughout the globe (Fuller), with specifically over one billion users having downloaded the up and coming, popular app “TikTok”. This new media platform quickly grew amongst internet youths within a matter of months, having gained millions of downloads. Surprisingly, this 15-second video app has gained a shocking amount of attention and continues to engage its audience as well as attract more users internationally. It felt like if one wasn’t a part of this new media sensation, they were out of the loop. Making people confused, feeling left out, and humoring them through their many attention-grabbing advertisements, these apps have helped shape people’s views on themselves and their identities in our media-driven world. This essay will identify how the internet has affected the interpretation of the self and our surroundings. Specifically, how TikTok has drastically revolutionized our self-perception as well as how previous media began this transformation through false “truths”.

TikTok has become one of the largest apps internationally. This media phenomenon came to light through the development of ‘Musical.ly’. This was an app where its user can dive into a universe full of lip-syncing videos to popular songs, lines from TV shows and movies, as well as online ‘memes’. A new culture was being formed of a kind that the internet has yet to have seen before. As ‘Musical.ly’ was taking over social media platforms, a software developing company named ByteDance was test-driving their own version of the app, TikTok. The two were extremely similar, competing in downloads and popularity amongst teens. As a result, ByteDance bought out ‘Musical.ly’ for nearly one billion dollars, liquifying it into the sole-standing ‘TikTok’ (Jennings). That was just a year ago, now the app has acquired millions of downloads and millions of active users every day. Through its incredible growth, it has created its own sphere of influence, forming a new type of fame and relevancy throughout the internet and has integrated itself into our daily lives.

Every new form of digital media has a magical power of reeling in a new generation to heavily influence. “The virtual world can distract people so much from their real lives that they either forget who they are or become so involved in the reality they’ve created that they don’t want to work on their own issues.” (Thomas). This has become a dangerous realm with the development of adolescence, as a social media presence is now pertinent to peoples’ self-identity. This can cause a terrible effect as so much manipulation is done through photoshop, filters, video and photo cropping, as well as other effects. Younger people see these forms of media and believe it to be the truth, as they would have no other incentive or previous knowledge to think otherwise. Current parents don’t seem to grasp how big of an issue psychologically this has become, they have created barely any limits on their children's screen time. Kids are being told by online influencers how important it is to maintain a particular body image, to make copious amounts of cash, as well as other unhealthy habits and lifestyles that are not realistic to the common person. This era of internet popularity has only grown more over time as new social media apps surface and continue to multiply.

TikTok has developed a new wave of internet fame and its own influential sphere. To those not in the loop, we question as to why and how is this app of short videos so incredibly popular? Its most notable feature is the “For You” page. TikTok has become notorious for its accurate data mining, as to only show the user material that the app will know that they will enjoy (Herrman). It’s extremely easy to find one’s niche and community within its algorithm in just a few interactions. Another feature that people find very attractive is that you are able to discover new users and their content at every visit. Unlike other social media platforms, it doesn’t have the same few influencers dominate one’s feed. It’s much easier through this algorithm to find more people who create similar, enjoyable content. The app also promotes a function called “duets”, where the user can put their video next to a different creator’s content creating an entirely new media. Many users replicate what the original video was, but others add on to it, forming a new message completely and having others react to it. Through these different media sharing formats, one’s self-identity and perceptions of others could be misinterpreted or manipulated.

The internet was not the only time people have been heavily persuaded by a media form. It truly began when the daguerreotype was invented in 1839, allowing photography to be a common object in society (Library of Congress). This new media was and continues to be used as a way to store a memory, keeping a moment frozen in time forever. It always allowed those high in power to manipulate the public by showing pictures claiming them to be the truth, without being transparent about the photograph's context, its angles, lighting, and any other forms of early-age editing. Susan Sontag, a predominant writer on the misperceptions caused by media, explains the many ways of interpretation by looking at a singular photo. This form of media only shows us the surface level, leaving us to interpret the rest. More likely than not, these ‘interpretations’ are far from the reality of what this moment in time was from and the real feelings behind it (Sontag, 17). Sontag claimed that those who look at the medium will only accept the information that we are willing to see and gain from when not presented with further background knowledge or narration (Sontag, 23). Already with such a preliminary form of media that we use nearly on a daily basis, it has always had the power to manipulate our biases and reflections upon ourselves, especially through current social media platforms.

Through our several forms of media and the many ways we can share them, our form of encoding and decoding has also adjusted through our new lens of perceptions. This is a theory that describes that meaning is produced and changed over time based on our personal and societal biases (Hall, 29). These begin with a signifier, such as a symbol or an object, and we have put a name to it as well a connotation towards the object, otherwise known as the signified. These meanings are not only determined by our opinions and feelings, but also the context surrounding the object. This is an important factor when speaking on communication, especially how that’s now been transferred online. It seems that our ways of transferring information have simultaneously gotten more direct but also less transparent. Through the internet, it’s much easier to convolute the truth by misinterpreting the media’s context or having no background whatsoever. TikTok has transformed this concept such as the video platform YouTube has. Younger audiences tend to not grasp the fact that most of these clips are edited to get the end result the creator wants. Back to the horror genre example, children are influenced that these apparitions are real and that they could possibly affect themselves and their loved ones. Through education and being aware of internet access with children, hopefully our forms of decoding can become much more transparent.

Although TikTok has had a reputation for users to post “cringe” and “wholesome” content, there is a very real dark side as well. Unlike other apps where followers, subscribers, likes, and comments are very integrated and important to one’s social media influence, TikTok does not deal with these particular psychological triggers. Instead, it has dealt with its algorithms reviewing videos to remove pornographic material, child predators, harassment, and newly discovered graphic ISIS propaganda (Perez). The different genres that the app offers also has had negative influences on younger users. Videos that would be considered “horror” convince children that these are completely real occurrences. Now for those of us who have been around on the internet for a while and understand that most media is never the full truth, we would never believe that these videos were not edited in one way or another. But these kids’ mindsets are different. They have begun to idolize users, believing that everything that they see is the truth. For a simple video app that anyone can create content, it’s not surprising that these short videos can be more influential than TV, movies, or even a YouTube video, especially in our fast-paced world.

Yet another way that TikTok may be manipulating our self perception and biases is through hidden government propaganda. It’s been recently revealed that the United States government has begun a full-blown investigation if the owners of TikTok, ByteDance, are following Chinese laws in their Terms and Agreement for users (Schiffer). Government officials in the U.S. are worried that this incredibly influential app could be a national security threat. Since the original short video app was USA made, Musical.ly, this was the first time in history that an international program company has purchased and combined with an American app. All other popular social media apps are American owned, thus the government is concerned that they do not have a grasp on their citizen’s data, and the fact that they have no idea what this information will be used for. There have been reports that TikTok had been censoring pro-democracy protests occuring in Hong Kong, as well as pushing content that is for the current Chinese government. In addition to user’s reports on ISIS propaganda and violent videos, the public is gaining easier access to horrifying material, either making people more on edge in regards to their safety, or influenced to joining these terrifying groups (Ivanova, 11). Through the app’s algorithms and the simplicity of viewing video after video, what other hidden messages have been portrayed with political connotation? This type of media can manipulate one’s judgement subconsciously, the user not even realizing the content that they are taking in.

Our biases and perceptions are changing nonstop through the many forms of media that we consume, whether we like it or not. TikTok has developed a powerful realm of influence that continues to grow and spread throughout the internet and even daily conversation. In such simplistic ways, media has the power to change our perceptions of the world, and even ourselves. Especially since in our current day and age, media is a constant, making it easy to distract us and, in turn, easy to influence us. TikTok’s brilliant algorithm and attention-holding features has made itself not only one of the most popular apps to this day, but also a terrifying platform where manipulation lurks, for better or for worse.