TikTok is entertainment Cheetos

• User interactions such as the videos you like or share, accounts you follow, comments you post, and content you create.

It’s striking that TikTok, on the surface, prizes individuality but what truly sustains the platform is imitation and repetition and the all-too-human desire to be just like everyone else. Despite the many charming or strange or jaw-dropping videos on TikTok, far more of the videos are fairly mundane. They receive little attention, but the creators... See more

Like Snapchat, it has a novel format. But if you just focus on the format, you miss the point. The most important thing is the purpose and structure of the network. TikTok users aren’t sharing with their friends, they’re performing for the world. They’re not keeping up with familiar faces, they’re discovering new ones. It’s hard to prove this is tr... See more

In theory, breaking up Hollywood-style shows into quick bites means that people should consume this content in the “in between” times, but in practice this is not how it works. There turns out to be a deep integration between the genre conventions of Hollywood and the time constraints of longer-form entertainment. TikToks are great for the moments ... See more