On 4 October 2015, on our article “Instagram Global EXPO” , we explained to you the pros of the new emerging social: Instagram. Hereby the clue sentence of our article:
“We may browse Instagram even from a mobile device; it has a strong visual impact, is multicoloured, multimedia and multilingual allowing its own projection to be exposed with no need to be explained. It is an expository global space consulted by tens of millions people every day…”
Five years later Instagram still convinces us with its agora based on hashtags.
Instagram turned out to be more current than Facebook, thanks to its multimedia DNA, to the presence of mutant aggregations, in perpetual motion.
For the same reasons today, a few years later,
TikTok is definitely surpassing Instagram.
ComScore has revealed, in only three months, an increment of +202% of TikTok users in Italy, from 2.1 million to 6.4 million users.
In three months TikTok has tripled its users.
And worldwide it’s the same with over 1.5 million users who downloaded TikTok App.
The new social, the most welcome by the youngsters (and not only seen +258% users between the age of 25-34 years), it is a real multimedia showcase where thousands of “TikTokers” expose themselves.
We all understood that via Facebook it is possible to socialize and talk about himself.
Instagram surpassed the centrality (key role) of the text through images and hashtag, and cleared the short video and, in turn, paved the way to TikTok.
The Tiktok videos are very short, normally last 15 seconds.
The protagonists reach in few second the maximum media exposure.
They are influencer and influenceable, ego and centric, even if only for a few instants.
In Italy are published 236 videos per minute.
Popularity, synthesis, multimedia impact, sharing,… this is TikTok.
Maybe TikTok is not the most modern APP on the Store but, perhaps, is the one used in the most imaginative, aggregative, dynamic and fashionable way.
The “TikToker” looks for originality being deliberately flashy up to ridiculous, trying to create something unique, original.
The TikTokers draw from the surroundings; they are often sarcastic, they emulate each other, they differentiate from each other and contradict each other.
To the center of TikTok we find the “trend”, real catchphrases, creative intuitions: Backing tracks, original drawings, imitations, imitations of the imitations, filters,… tools used by the TikTokers in the most disparate ways.
It is a nebula, an interpersonal agglomeration, in continuous creative evolution.
Often these videos are so original to create a short circuit with music videos, programs and TV advertisements. They “copy” one from another and vice versa; a vortex, a sort of global brainstorming, tendencies which influence social people, web-influencer which inspire the normal media.
Is there a new way of communicating? If it is, is on TikTok, and there is already a multitude of young TikTokers who is having fun with it. They will do it for a while, perhaps for some days and then just as quickly move on to something else.
Creativity, rapidity and multimediality are essential part of daily life and social experience.
We wonder what may be the effects in the long run of such a widespread multimedia exposure, especially for a child or a teenager.
Often the TikTokers don’t have even the age to give the consent to the use of their personal data. Officially, lots of the creative youngsters who supply constantly the web are not even connected. This shows even more the discrepancy between the real world (and its rules) and the ever-changing World 2.0.
Vice versa TikTok is also an “index” of digital divide. Do you find silly to post a video online? Or follow a new kitch tendency ? You don’t want to appear on web at all? Maybe you are very secretive, or far more likely, you have a digital divide towards internet and its excesses and its virtual showcases.
What is the finish line of our article? We are not here to celebrate TikTok.
Instead, we wonder if it is possible teaching and informing by using non-traditional tools, creating new visual bonds towards the new generations.
Is it possible to teach art, history, literature using short videos?
Is it possible to involve their own students using the hashtags?
Is it possible that a teacher become a “TikToker?”
Can we use the dynamics and the communication tools of the youngest for the youngest and with the youngest?
Culture and information are compelled to use “not social”, institutional channels?
Are you a teacher, a librarian, a social worker, a child psychologist?
Accept the challenge and use TikTok to involve “your” young users in a creative and empathetic way.
What is our advice? There is no trend and no time to lose, we must be multimedia and communicate through Instagram and TikTok.
Because in this World 2.0, we are all in a window; you can bet your hashtag!
And don’t forget to unload TikTok on your smartphone!
WorldTwoDotZero
WorldTwoDotZero 