Regardless of the fact that TikTok is one of the most popular social media applications in the world, a great number of people are still unaware.
The Chinese application was founded by a start-up company called ByteDance in 2016, and it has only grown in popularity since. Nevertheless, a big part of its persona and history remains unknown.
How come TikTok was formerly known as Musical.ly? What kind of controversies has TikTok been a part of? Why did the United States nearly outright ban TikTok and why have many other countries got on board?
Continue reading to learn all about it, and other fascinating facts about your beloved video app!
Contents
How TikTok changed its name from Musical.ly to TikTok?
In 2018, TikTok rebranded from Musical.ly to TikTok.
It’s quite a simple question to respond to, Musical.ly was started in Shanghai in 2014, but it quickly gained a large fanbase in the United States and had professional ties to the region.
After about two years, ByteDance introduced Douyin, a video-sharing application that competed with Musical.ly. ByteDance noticed right away the importance of Musical.ly and thought it was time to expand since Douyin turned out extremely successful.
As a result, in 2018, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly, renaming it TikTok, and launching it internationally. Musical.ly was modified after being bought and revamped for this purpose.
What is the most famous TikTok ever?
If you’ve been fortunate to make the most famous TikTok, you can officially start calling yourself a TikTok boss. This honor belongs to TikTok entertainer Zach King. In 2019, he made a magic video involving him “flying on a broomstick”.
The clip exploded in popularity, with over two billion views. Let that sink in for a moment. Just one TikTok clip has over 2 billion views, which is more than 1/4 of the entire earth’s population. We get why the clip is so famous because it is amazing.
Is TikTok controversial?
TikTok has had a good amount of criticism and controversy even though it is one of the most well-known, adored, and influential apps on the planet. There were a few countries that considered it a national security hazard.
But, there were also countries that have viewed TikTok videos as unethical and incompatible with their own beliefs and values.
At the beginning of the year 2020, just before the Covid-19 outbreak, it was revealed that TikTok executives had instructed reviewers to remove content made by “unattractive and bad” users in order to draw in a fresh audience to the app.
Obviously, this is not a thing a considerate, community-driven social media app would do, and although these are Chinese contract papers, it calls concerns about TikTok’s strategy in other countries.
How did TikTok nearly become forbidden in the United States?
Former President Donald Trump and various other governments claimed that TikTok posed a problem to the United States’ national security. TikTok and ByteDance ended up selling their American capital to a local company, according to Trump, or fear becoming blocked throughout the United States.
Nevertheless, Trump’s efforts to block the application were prevented by American judges, and the initiative was ultimately abandoned. Talking about this right now appears preposterous and that TikTok will not be restricted in the United States.
Meanwhile, even if President Biden is not particularly close with China, he is less protective than the former President, that is why TikTok might well be able to operate successfully for a long time.
How big is TikTok’s userbase?
TikTok currently has over 1 billion active users every month around the world. Just for contrast, Facebook has 2.80 billion active users each month, Instagram has approximately 2 billion, and Twitter has over 500 million.
This shows us that TikTok is already more successful than Twitter and Snapchat but it still has a lengthy road ahead before catching up to Facebook or Instagram.
Young Zoomers appear to be less engaged with Twitter, opting rather to turn to TikTok for its greater originality and group emphasis. TikTok doesn’t appear to be holding back and is getting more and more popular!
TikTok’s primary audience
Roughly 59% of TikTok users are between the ages of 18 and 34. The videos reflect this, emphasizing Zoomer ideals such as honesty, a blend of quirky humor and hedonism, and a strong emphasis on song and dance.
Furthermore, TikTok videos apply themselves much less to exhaustive political discussions that Twitter can be prone to do, as well as the type of fake news and disinformation that spreads on Facebook.
This is because TikTok is actually more appealing to a generation that has experienced life understanding how destructive these issues are.
Why “TikTok”?
The name “TikTok” resembles the sound a clock makes when it is ticking.
Have you figured out why TikTok is named this way? If you thought that the word represents the steady ticking of a clock considering that the clips are brief, you are right.
It is fascinating that an extremely popular application that is mostly used by people who are quite young and live in a high-tech world – is named after a technologically outdated device.
Even so, if you have ever watched a TikTok and thought, “Oh, this video has so little time to capture my attention before I go and watch another one”, you are actually interacting with the initial idea behind TikToks name!
