I also used tiktok for about a month but quit it. That's not to say it's not addictive though, my mom spends a significant amount of her free time on the app (but she still uses fb and ig, if anything tiktok just supplanted some of her time spent on ig). I suppose my point about it is that it's not absurdly unique compared to reddit, YouTube, or twitch which are similarly bottomless content holes.
TT isn't unique in parasocial relationships though. Most of the discourse around those relationships actually center around yt and twitch for a reason (and to a lesser extent twitter and onlyfans). If anything tiktok is better than streaming platforms because there's less of that illusion of familiarity; you only see the content creator for minutes at a time before another's there to replace them (twitch you see them for hours at a time and often people only identify strongly with a few streamers).
I'd also argue against the utility argument. Tiktok has allowed for both information and misinformation to spread on its platforms, but that's a non unique argument. Small business accounts on tiktok have also flourished, a commonly repeated piece of advice currently is for small business owners to create accounts and just record their daily routines. Businesses like specialty stationers have exploded in recognition due to this.
The much stronger case against tiktok over other social media's is your communication point. There's little opportunity there for people to actually, you know, socialize with each other. It's content and only content, and even YouTube comments have more meaningful opportunities for educated discussion. It's more similar to twitch chat in that regard but even on twitch content creators regularly engage in discourse publicly. Tiktok enables this through its reply system, but because of its content delivery system you might never see that.
Ya, I also used tiktok for about a month before getting rid of it. I still think my point stands that everything about it makes it addictive.
TT is a bottomless content hole and isn’t that different from other bottomless content holes because they are that. TT takes it a step further with their format focusing on short, attention grabbing content, a best-in-class recommendation algorithm, and rewarding their creators with more views than other networks.
I don’t know if I agree Tiktok fosters better (do we mean healthier?) parasocial relationships than other socials. There’s a certain intimacy from the cell phone camera that YouTube and twitch doesn’t have (twitch has a different intimacy, but like you said they are on for hours a time). I think when TT creators are encouraged to upload multiple times a day, compared to once a week on YouTube or twitch, pushes something that feels closer seeing a best friend than watching your cool cousin.
I absolutely agree that TikTok is better for marketing a business than other networks, but it doesn’t have much of any utility beyond that. I wonder about the effectiveness of communicating over DM with businesses over Instagram vs tiktok.
For the record I’m addicted to YouTube and HN and don’t currently have accounts on any of the other services mentioned.
Lol I'm also addicted to YT (not proud of it, but the amount of well-produced, solid educational content makes it a hard habit to kick).
I think TT's algorithm is the strongest selling point. Vine had even shorter content and even faster dopamine hits but ultimately died (I can't recall if Music.ly died or was absorbed before it met a natural fate). I can't speak towards monetization but I hazard that TT creators still make most of their money from sponsorships (like twitch and YT) based on that one Hype House thing. That said, the algorithm might be a bit overstated in its strength. Put enough creators together on the same place all trying to be relatable, add in the fact that people are going through dozens if not hundreds of videos at a time, you're bound to yield several hits. In this sense, I think TT is successful not directly because of its format, but in that it's achieved a critical mass because of its format, and that critical mass allows it to easily perpetuate itself.
I think the parasocial relationships aren't "better", except that TT is "better" than Twitch and YT because it's harder to develop these parasocial relationships. Maybe your theory about phone cameras is correct, but I think what's absent is that sense of _address_. On YT, creators will often call their viewers under some aggregate nickname, or make direct references to their audience in a way that invites closeness. Combine this with frequent references to their fanbases as "communities" and I think that YT and Twitch have developed something of a cultural illusion that TT has not yet developed (again, mostly second-hand as I no longer frequent the platform). Again, this remains to be seen, but I lean towards seeing IG as the model here: where you can have similarly frequent posts, cellphone livestreams, and videos (and now shorts). However, since IG is usually not criticized as heavily for parasocial relationships as YT and Twitch, I really think that the difference maker is the systems of address and sense of community that, at the very least, has not fully developed on TT.
TT isn't unique in parasocial relationships though. Most of the discourse around those relationships actually center around yt and twitch for a reason (and to a lesser extent twitter and onlyfans). If anything tiktok is better than streaming platforms because there's less of that illusion of familiarity; you only see the content creator for minutes at a time before another's there to replace them (twitch you see them for hours at a time and often people only identify strongly with a few streamers).
I'd also argue against the utility argument. Tiktok has allowed for both information and misinformation to spread on its platforms, but that's a non unique argument. Small business accounts on tiktok have also flourished, a commonly repeated piece of advice currently is for small business owners to create accounts and just record their daily routines. Businesses like specialty stationers have exploded in recognition due to this.
The much stronger case against tiktok over other social media's is your communication point. There's little opportunity there for people to actually, you know, socialize with each other. It's content and only content, and even YouTube comments have more meaningful opportunities for educated discussion. It's more similar to twitch chat in that regard but even on twitch content creators regularly engage in discourse publicly. Tiktok enables this through its reply system, but because of its content delivery system you might never see that.