TikTok: Democratized filmmaking or social media?

“Tik Tok is not Social Media; in fact it marks the end of the social era.” When we read this statement by Leroyson Figueira in an article for TheDrum.com, it sparked a lot of internal debate amongst #teamMXB.

Leroyson Figueira, Creative Director of 160over90, continued in the article,

“We watch films. Hundreds of them, back to back, and fast. Swipe, swipe, swipe. I use the word ‘films’ deliberately: TikTok is not a social channel. It is a broadcast channel”.

Referring to it as Democratized filmmaking, Figueira believes, “There’s nothing social about it. We don’t read the comments on TikTok to see what people think. We don’t care about the number of likes, as long as we find it immediately entertaining (and that can be pretty niche). Nobody sees what we’re watching. We don’t ‘share’ our top films. We don’t let our friends and family know what we’re watching, because our entertainment choices are personal. My humor is not your humor. TikTok is intimate and ours”.

He sees TikTok as Entertainment for one in so much as “If algorithm-driven short filmic content is where the world is moving to, and it sure looks like it, then it’s an individual world, not a ‘social’ one. TikTok is entertainment for one…
So goodbye and so long social media. TikTok is all about me”.

Sounding out our own team Shay Reynolds, our Digital Creative Director, commented, “I’d have to disagree with some of this. If I laugh at a TikTok video, a lot of the time I’ll head to the comments to see what other people think. The funniest comments are then ‘liked’ and pinned to the top. Also the ‘duet’ and ‘stitch’ mechanics on TikTok are made for people to directly share their own version of the video. So it definitely has room for plenty of ‘social’ interaction.
What I’d say is, there definitely seems to be a lot fewer ‘regular’ folks willing to share their own personal content as much as they would on the likes of Twitter, or IG. I think that’s more because people aren’t as brave when it comes to video content. It’s a raw platform and can sometimes take random content and propel it in front of half the world (which is exciting, but also a bit terrifying if you just fancied making a fun video for yourself and your friends).
I’d be interested to know how many TikTok profiles are ‘private’ versus open”.

We’d love you to join the debate… Where do you sit with it?

Certainly from the #teamMXB perspective we love sharing TikTok videos as part of our insights process so we’re in Shay’s camp, but we do love challenger viewpoints so thanks to Leroyson for sparking a juicy conversation.
Is TikTok more like a TV channel or Netflix than a social platform, or is it an evolutionary social platform made to encourage people to get creative and share their own forms of real pop culture video? #hottopic #jointhedebate

You can also read the full Drum article here.