Hashtags play a surprisingly large role on TikTok. Users are also strongly encouraged to engage with other users, through “response” videos or by means of “duets” - users can duplicate videos and add themselves alongside.

Video creators have all sorts of tools at their disposal: filters as on Snapchat (and later, everyone else) the ability to search for sounds to score your video. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagram’s stories, but you navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have them! Shall we? TikTok, now reportedly 500 million users strong, is not so obvious in its intentions. If we exclude Fortnite, which is very social but also very much a game, the last time an app inspired such interest from people who weren’t on it was … maybe Snapchat? (Not a coincidence that Snapchat’s audience skewed very young, too.)Īnd while you, perhaps an anxious abstainer, may feel perfectly secure in your “choice” not to join that service, Snapchat has more daily users than Twitter, changed the course of its industry, and altered the way people communicate with their phones. It’s been a while since a new social app got big enough, quickly enough, to make nonusers feel they’re missing out from an experience.

Tik tok app