In a unique sort of chicken and egg problem, the very types of video that TikTok’s algorithm needed to train on weren’t easy to create without the app’s camera tools and filters, licensed music clips, etc.

How did an app designed by two guys in Shanghai managed to run circles around U.S. video apps from YouTube to Facebook to Instagram to Snapchat, becoming the most fertile source for meme origination, mutation, and dissemination in a culture so different from the one in which it was built?

Now, the question is whether Instagram should replace their default view with a “full screen video experience” that would basically complete their transition into a wholesale TikTok clone.