Fame is a mixed bag any way you look at it. But what happens when your celebrity comes
from you being you? From the pressure to create, to the invasion of privacy, there's a flipside
to the exposure gained in the social media realm. Here's the dirty truth about being
a TikTok star.
One bonus to social media is the free exposure. The better your content, depending on the
algorithm, the greater the reach. The diversity of TikTok users — speaking 75 languages
in 154 countries — provides an opportunity to create both localized and global content.
And it didn't take long for brands to tap into their potential on the platform. While
the app doesn't have a revenue sharing program, as of mid 2021, it does help connect brands
with influencers for advertising and sponsored posts.
From obscurity to fame in a matter of months — all for dancing around her parents' house
— one of the app's sensations, then 15-year-old Charli D'Amelio, parlayed the popularity of
her first viral clip into mainstream legitimacy by 2019. As the Hollywood Reporter described
her,
"[Charli] has the potential to earn millions [with] a team of agents, managers and lawyers
working tirelessly behind the scenes."
"We're the D'Amelios."
Not to mention, her entire family is now enjoying TikTok fame. Charli's agent at UTA, Ali Berman,
told the outlet that she looks for up-and-coming talent on the platform, adding that she has
penned six-figure endorsement deals for the TikTokers she represents. And mining TikTok
talent also works in reverse. The app reportedly offered six-figure payouts of its own for
established Instagrammers and YouTubers to direct their followers over to TikTok.
Social media challenges bond us in both humiliation and valor. The infamous Ice Bucket Challenge
for ALS research provided glee to loved ones and frenemies as they watched their associates
suffer for a good cause. But even though many TikTok challenges are designed more for brand
engagement, rather than a charitable cause, they're still a really fun way to bond across
cyberspace with your favorite users.
But, from the Outlet Challenge — which involved sliding a penny between a phone charger and
an electrical outlet, and started many fires — to the Bright Eye Challenge — where
people put bleach into a bag and placed it on their eye for a minute — it appears some
TikTokers are willing to set common sense aside in the name of likes.
"I was thinking like oh my God, I'm going to lose my life for this game. I never should
have done it."
On the lighter side of TikTok challenges, when Jennifer Lopez launched her Super Bowl
Dance Challenge, she enlisted Charli D'Amelio, who told Entertainment Tonight that one of
her main goals in life was to bust a move with JLo.
"Tears just started rolling down my eyes cuz this is all I ever really, really wanted to
experience."
Trends come and go in a flash. With posts typically driven by of-the-moment pop culture
trends, users need to stay on top of hot topics to keep their content fresh. But the difference
between success and failure for TikTok stars is less about production value and more about
the data. While some sites provide analytics — likes, shares, views, etc — for years,
TikTok users are only able to view 28 days' worth of analytics, rendering all engagement
older than that irrelevant.
And maintaining a high level of engagement matters when it comes to earning potential.
As Pentos notes, due to the nature of the short-video-clip format, sponsored content
on TikTok is more suited for building "brand awareness" than for counting clicks. TikTok
isn't designed for link sharing, so producers of highly-visible content must upload their
stuff directly to TikTok to engage with their followers.
"Mom! It was never a phase! It's a lifestyle!"
To keep the revenue generated from brand partnerships coming, TikTok stars need to not only keep
their recent user stats stellar, they also must continue to drive positive, plentiful
engagement around the sponsored content. The burden falls on the influencer to keep things
fresh while staying in line with their sponsor's reputation.
It doesn't take much to be "canceled" these days. And the two degrees of separation between
TikTok stars and their fans — the camera recording the video and the device playing
it — makes it much easier to dehumanize the influencer. When someone with a high profile
messes up, the backlash is often immediate, and brutal.
Just as career prospects for actors and musicians who fall out of public favor disappear into
thin air, the rug can be pulled from under a TikTok star in a split second should their
reputation be tarnished. The public often threatens to boycott an exiled celeb's sponsors
as the first line of offense, and a PR nightmare can be the kiss of death for sponsorships
and mainstream gigs.
A gaggle of TikTok-ers — including Charli D'Amelio and sister Dixie, Chase Hudson, Noah
Beck, and Madi Monroe — received a lashing online when they were spotted at the Atlantis
Bahamas resort amid the coronavirus spike in late 2020, according to BuzzFeed News.
None of them were "canceled" for taking this controversial vacay, but it certainly served
as a warning that fans can be unforgiving.
It's easy to become fixated on engagement analytics when they are the only measurable
barometer of success. Statistics become a source of external validation, and dwindling
engagement can often translate to a lesser sense of self-worth.
Creating content for TikTok can easily become the singular focus for influencers. Several
TikTok stars got together and rented a mansion, which they termed the "Hype House," for the
sole purpose of collaborating on the creation of TikTok videos. Resident Chase Hudson told
The Hollywood Reporter,
"We just wanted to put out a lot of good content as a family and make it feel like the fans
were connected to something."
"I feel like you can tell through camera if people like each other or not and like, it's
not fun to fake things."
By all accounts, Hype House indeed creates tons of content. Engagement on that level
is beyond impressive, but it still frequently affects influencers when feedback is negative.
According to Psychology Today,
"When you start craving that feedback more and more, it may be time to reassess how reliant
you are on the like button for your happiness."
TikTok came under investigation as a potential national security risk to the United States
in 2019, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok
has had access to a mountain of valuable data. In response to concerns, ByteDance announced
the addition of a so-called "transparency center" near its North American headquarters
in Los Angeles.
BBC News reports that TikTok was fined $5.7 million by the Federal Trade Commission in
2019 over the collection of data from children by the platform's precursor, Musical.ly. And
in July 2020, Forbes reported on accusations of inappropriate data collection by TikTok.
The Trump Administration even threatened to ban the app in the U.S. due to security concerns,
and the video-sharing site subsequently sued them.
Former American TikTok employees previously told The Washington Post that they were directed
to limit, quote, "political content" on the site, by their corporate headquarters in China.
TikTok moved content moderators out of China as a response to the accusations. But cybersecurity
giant Proton Mail tweeted in July 2020,
"[TikTok] collects troves of personal data on you (sometimes without your consent). […] We
find TikTok to be a grave privacy threat that likely shares data with the Chinese government."
A byproduct of our culture of instant gratification is the perpetual need for something new and
interesting. This increases pressure on TikTokers to push the envelope, which can have negative
repercussions. A popular TikTok paint mixer was fired from his job at Sherwin Williams
when the company discovered his activity on the platform — but his newfound fame helped
him quickly find another gig. Meanwhile, a nurse was fired for bragging on TikTok about
breaking COVID protocol.
More than 20 percent of TikTok users fall into the influential 18 to 24-year-old female
demographic, according to Comscore. This group is a notoriously successful social media kingmaker,
having elevated Instagram and Snapchat to the top of the social media food chain. TikTok
is rising in the way of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat — but there's always
something new in the works.
TikTok and its users will surely capitalize on their immense popularity while they're
on top, and their videos will remain a part of video-clip history forever. Here's hoping
nobody makes any boneheaded moves that will come back to haunt them in the future.
In 2019, TikTok was forced to implement a system to report bullies, because harassment
was frequent and algorithms weren't cutting it. The app's community guidelines clearly
state that the platform doesn't tolerate any kind of shaming or bullying, but still, those
types of actions run rampant.
Of course, there is overt bullying, and then there are dangerous pranks seemingly meant
to poke fun at people. For instance, the "Skull Breaker Challenge" has landed many people
in the hospital. The challenge involves kicking the legs out from under someone while they're
jumping in the air. Some people did this willingly, but many unsuspecting "participants" were
seriously injured.
"I remember like blacking out for a second…" "I started to get an instant like pressure
headache right after it happened, and I started crying."
Still, even TikTok's biggest stars have been on the receiving end of hatefulness. For a
UNICEF video, Charli and Dixie D'Amelio discussed the bullying they have experienced online.
"Getting hundreds of thousands of hate comments per week is a lot to handle."
Rising to fame on the heels of other artists' work is a cornerstone of TikTok stardom, be
it lip-synching, dancing, imitating, mocking, or otherwise incorporating a song or other
audio track into their videos.
Comedian Sarah Cooper, for example, gained notoriety after lip-synching comical Donald
Trump phrases. She made a name for herself in mainstream media and even got a Netflix
special out of it in October 2020. The importance of external inspiration to the success of
TikTokers is likely what most separates it from its closest online cousin, YouTube.
But while most TikTok stars appear to be piggybacking fame, others are merely living their best
lives. Take Jennifer Lopez and her former beau, baseball legend Alex Rodriguez. Before
they called it quits in 2021, this celebrity couple frequently posted their fun, private
moments for the world to see.
Whatever the downsides may be, when it comes to the platform's biggest stars, we just can't
get enough of TikTok.
"Ya better be there."
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about your
favorite social media stars are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the
bell so you don't miss a single one.