Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein, chief media
Speaker 1: analyst with Variety Intelligence Platform. Got no guests this week,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you why, because I, as one of
Speaker 1: the raining media gurus coming to you each week on
Speaker 1: Strictly Business, could not do another interview for this podcast,
Speaker 1: dear listener without talking about a profound transformation I've recently
Speaker 1: undergone with my own personal media habits. There's just no
Speaker 1: other way to say it. TikTok has broken my middle
Speaker 1: aged brain. Stick around, and I'll explain why. Welcome back
Speaker 1: by I record this day's after President Trump issued in
Speaker 1: executive order granting a seventy five day extension on the
Speaker 1: TikTok ban in order to facilitate a sale to an
Speaker 1: American company. There is so much to say about the
Speaker 1: implications of all this from a business perspective, a cultural perspective.
Speaker 1: But you know what, you won't hear any of that
Speaker 1: from me on this edition of the podcast, because, as
Speaker 1: I said, I cannot in good conscience sit here any
Speaker 1: longer like it's just another episode and pontificate per usual
Speaker 1: about all things media with guests until I've come clean
Speaker 1: about what has hit me with the force of a
Speaker 1: religious experience in recent months, and maybe a spiritual metaphor
Speaker 1: is the best way to explain what I'm trying to convey.
Speaker 1: After fifty years of faithful devotion to TV, I've converted
Speaker 1: to TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Somehow, the controversial app has become my primary media destination
Speaker 1: every day instead of television. And when I say television,
Speaker 1: I mean both pay TV and some description streaming TV
Speaker 1: shows and movies have taken a backseat to TikTok's never ending,
Speaker 1: algorithmically targeted feed of short form videos. The advertising is
Speaker 1: so light touch I barely notice it, and best of all,
Speaker 1: it's totally free, yet I'd probably pay for it if
Speaker 1: I had to. And though I am pathetically late to
Speaker 1: the party and just too darn old to be captivated
Speaker 1: by TikTok in the first place, I must share what
Speaker 1: this experience has been like because it's left me with
Speaker 1: some observations about not just this powerful platform, but the
Speaker 1: future of media in general. I know it's a lot
Speaker 1: to take in, and I'm as surprised to hear these
Speaker 1: words coming out of my mouth as anyone, because prior
Speaker 1: to my conversion, I've always found something dystopian about the
Speaker 1: whole notion of TikTok. User generated clips shot rapid fire
Speaker 1: into my cerebral cortex, shredding my attention span. But what
Speaker 1: can I say? That sweet sweet algorithm has worked its
Speaker 1: magic on my mind over enough time to cast a
Speaker 1: spell on me. I've come to love meme culture and
Speaker 1: the relative absence of mainstream media culture on the platform.
Speaker 1: And there's just so much more that I'll get into here.
Speaker 1: But before I pontificate any further, let me just acknowledge
Speaker 1: this much. I totally get it. If your reaction to
Speaker 1: what little I've said so far is okay, boomer, thanks
Speaker 1: but no thanks, not interested in insights from the last
Speaker 1: oldest TikTok adopter on Earth? Why don't you come back
Speaker 1: next week? Some hot takes on what MySpace or for
Speaker 1: inster was like too, And I get it. That's a
Speaker 1: totally valid reaction, though I should point out first I'm
Speaker 1: not a boomer. I'm Generation X old, but not that old.
Speaker 1: If you want to just bail right now before I
Speaker 1: unpack this any further, I could accept that you won't
Speaker 1: hurt my feelings. I'm sure there's a fresh four our
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan interview that's a better use of your time.
Speaker 1: But for those of you who have stuck around first,
Speaker 1: thanks for giving me a chance. I should also clarify
Speaker 1: it's not like I suddenly discovered TikTok in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five after crawling out from under whatever rock I was
Speaker 1: living under. I've had the app on my phone for
Speaker 1: several years for the occasion when someone mentioned something I
Speaker 1: wanted to see on TikTok, I'd use the app to
Speaker 1: check it out, always wondering, considering its vaunted algorithm, whether
Speaker 1: it was akin to taking a hit from a crack pipe.
Speaker 1: But I would dip in, dip out, figuring I was
Speaker 1: old enough to be impervious to its charms until this year.
Speaker 1: What drew me to TikTok long enough to get sufficiently
Speaker 1: seduced this time around came late last year, when the
Speaker 1: political drama around the app's existence was at its high point.
Speaker 1: I was curious to get a first hand sense of
Speaker 1: how the crisis was being felt by the TikTok Faithful
Speaker 1: and truth be told. While I was struck by the
Speaker 1: creativity and passion of many on the platform. I wasn't
Speaker 1: impressed anymore by what I was seeing on TikTok than
Speaker 1: I was on any other social platform. You have to
Speaker 1: understand I've been following digital native content trends for nearly
Speaker 1: two decades, dating back to the earliest days of YouTube
Speaker 1: and the earliest flowerings of the creator economy, back before
Speaker 1: it was called the creator economy, before they were even
Speaker 1: called influencers. And I followed these trends as the momentum
Speaker 1: move from one platform to another, whether it was Vine
Speaker 1: or Switch or Snapchat, each had their own quirks and idiosyncrasies.
Speaker 1: But through it all, I always prided myself on keeping
Speaker 1: a kind of anthropological detachment from it all. I admired
Speaker 1: from a distance, but never really got drawn in personally.
Speaker 1: But now, in twenty twenty five, the truth is the
Speaker 1: programming experience of TikTok has been so thoroughly co opted
Speaker 1: by rival copycat products like Instagram reels and YouTube shorts
Speaker 1: that when I talk about TikTok, I'm not really talking
Speaker 1: about TikTok per se. It's format that algorithmically targeted torrent
Speaker 1: of short form videos curated by my thumb swiping with
Speaker 1: such reptilian efficiency, it almost feels like my hand is
Speaker 1: operating independently from my brain. I call it the clip
Speaker 1: scroll format. TikTok created it, but apparently couldn't patent it.
Speaker 1: That said, TikTok's algorithmic magic may be more powerful than
Speaker 1: the other platforms, at the very least deserves credit for
Speaker 1: pioneering the format that's become so addictive. Addiction. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a word I must admit I shouldn't be using loosely
Speaker 1: when it comes to TikTok or any social apps. There
Speaker 1: are serious concerns about the power they have, particularly with
Speaker 1: its youngest users. Not to mention the serious concerns about
Speaker 1: the potential espionage risk that TikTok app presents, I'd be
Speaker 1: remissing not referencing these dangers. And yet I must admit
Speaker 1: none of that stop me from falling head over heels
Speaker 1: in love with TikTok. And here's what may be the
Speaker 1: most tragic part of all. I see that the hours
Speaker 1: I spend on TikTok now each day clearly come at
Speaker 1: the expense of the time I used to spend watching TV.
Speaker 1: I just don't watch. I just don't watch a half
Speaker 1: hour or hour long shows at the volume that I
Speaker 1: used to. When after enjoying the first season of Severance recently,
Speaker 1: I found myself bored with season two. Even amid all
Speaker 1: that hype, I wondered if my TV taste buds were
Speaker 1: somehow permanently broken. Well, at least I'm still watching White Lotus,
Speaker 1: though I think that's about the only TV show I've
Speaker 1: been watching these days. But here's the thing. It's hard
Speaker 1: not to give TikTok credit for stealing the wind from
Speaker 1: TV sales, because when I reflect on TikTok's bounty, I
Speaker 1: see the seeds of so much what I had previously
Speaker 1: gotten from TV, super served by TikTok. Let me start
Speaker 1: with a counter intuitive example. I've really gotten to enjoy
Speaker 1: keeping up with what the biggest memes are on TikTok.
Speaker 1: The one that I cannot seem to get out of
Speaker 1: my head right now is people dancing to a rap
Speaker 1: song called you Gotta cut It, cut It, cut It,
Speaker 1: cut It, cut It, cut It, cut It, cut it,
Speaker 1: cut it Now. Maybe hip hop isn't your cup of tea,
Speaker 1: but I promise, if you let this earworm in your brain,
Speaker 1: it's gonna burrow so deep in there you'll never get
Speaker 1: it out. But let me get back to my point.
Speaker 1: How is something like memes, which are so particular to
Speaker 1: the Internet and not television, end up displacing my TV habit? Well,
Speaker 1: this is why I think. Part of what has made
Speaker 1: memes so compelling to me is that in our increasingly
Speaker 1: fragmented culture, where so many people are experiencing different and
Speaker 1: content a far cry from decades ago when the TV
Speaker 1: was the great unifying force that could bring together tens
Speaker 1: of millions of people on any given night, These memes
Speaker 1: and the way people play on them are as close
Speaker 1: to unifying our culture in its own interactive way. They
Speaker 1: make me feel connected to a larger culture and so
Speaker 1: you got to cut it and just feels more important
Speaker 1: to me right now than say, white lotus. Now, I
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking, Andy, This kind of mean play
Speaker 1: has been around on other platforms long before TikTok, So
Speaker 1: what makes so special here? And to that, I say,
Speaker 1: it's just different. On TikTok the level of creativity employed
Speaker 1: and the memes feels higher. And for those who disagree
Speaker 1: with that, okay, But here's where I think there's no
Speaker 1: argument the TikTok ux is just a superior delivery mechanism
Speaker 1: than any other social platform. Maybe it's the same old content,
Speaker 1: but it's different now. And I'll tell you what else.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's something particular to my feed, certainly not something
Speaker 1: I set out to cultivate. But the mainstream Hollywood galaxy
Speaker 1: of stars has such a muted presence in my feed.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. I follow the accounts on TikTok
Speaker 1: of dozens of actors, performers, singers, whatever, and I know
Speaker 1: that sounds like a knock against mainstream Hollywood entertainment culture,
Speaker 1: but it's not meant to be. There's plenty I like
Speaker 1: about the culture that I get everywhere else, But on
Speaker 1: TikTok it feels like the algorithm just intuitive that I
Speaker 1: would prefer to turn the dimmer down on the celebrity
Speaker 1: industrial complex. They don't loom nearly as large on TikTok,
Speaker 1: which doesn't have the top down entertainer elite separated by
Speaker 1: the unwashed mass audiences. It's a more democratic medium where
Speaker 1: the distinction between the entertainer and the audience doesn't really exist.
Speaker 1: It's such a refreshing differentiating thing that makes the app
Speaker 1: just a fascinating world to inhabit, and into the vacuum
Speaker 1: of all the oxygen that the celebrity industrial complex typically
Speaker 1: sucks up steps in this explosion of homegrown talent on
Speaker 1: the platform. Now, I wouldn't blame you if you started
Speaker 1: to get an ick feeling right about now thinking about
Speaker 1: the brand name creators out there, from mister Beast to
Speaker 1: the Paul Brothers. I'm just not a huge fan of
Speaker 1: these types, because there's something off putting to me about
Speaker 1: how sweaty that class of entertainers comes off, constantly shilling
Speaker 1: for themselves with they're desperate hit the subscribe button pitches
Speaker 1: and shilling for whatever brand is paying them. But that's
Speaker 1: not who populate my TikTok feed. Those who do are
Speaker 1: mostly thousands of not famous at least yet, people who
Speaker 1: may not be household names, but they've got talent. Watching
Speaker 1: TikTok makes you feel like what many of us already
Speaker 1: suspect about Hollywood. It's not as if their most successful
Speaker 1: performers possess some kind of rare talent that separates them
Speaker 1: from the masses, like the way you say your average
Speaker 1: pro athlete is world's better than ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the rest of the population. Now, TikTok gives the lie
Speaker 1: to that notion by exposing that there's many many people
Speaker 1: out there with comparable levels of talent to the lucky
Speaker 1: group that makes it through the Hollywood machine and onto
Speaker 1: our screens. And these many, many people just needed a
Speaker 1: discovery mechanism powerful enough to elevate them. And that's where
Speaker 1: TikTok comes in. If you had to pin me down
Speaker 1: to defining in one word, what gives TikTok gets a llure,
Speaker 1: I'm going to use a very scientific term, the vibe. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll need a few more words to capture what
Speaker 1: that vibe is. It's like everyone on TikTok is in
Speaker 1: a dance circle, taking turns, making each other laugh at
Speaker 1: the center with the silly jig. It's like you're inviting
Speaker 1: let me try something else. It's like you're invited to
Speaker 1: this gigantic potluck dinner where many people have taken it
Speaker 1: upon themselves to generously share the content they've cooked up,
Speaker 1: and you have this endless buffet that just gets shotgunned
Speaker 1: into your mouth in perfect little snackable bites. I myself
Speaker 1: don't contribute content, preferring to stay what they call, in
Speaker 1: Internet parlance, a lurker. But that's not unusual. A Pew
Speaker 1: Research Center study last year found that just twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of the most active people on the platform produced
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent of its content. Let me try to
Speaker 1: capture what I love about TikTok using a TV metaphor
Speaker 1: of sorts. Imagine if Saturday Night Live was a medium
Speaker 1: onto itself. Instead of about twenty performers Lauren Michael's pluck
Speaker 1: from obscurity, there's about one thousand more cast members just
Speaker 1: cranking out comedic vignettes on their own instead of relying
Speaker 1: on Lauren's taste and sketches, which frankly is a mixed
Speaker 1: track record. That's a subject for another podcast. You could
Speaker 1: just curate your own group from a vast sea of
Speaker 1: talent that you didn't know existed. And like SNL, some
Speaker 1: of the comedy comes from some pretty classic categories, like
Speaker 1: celebrity impressionists. But on an average episode of SNL, you're
Speaker 1: lucky if you'll see more than two impressionisms at work.
Speaker 1: On TikTok, you could sift through two hundred of them
Speaker 1: in a minute, and the quality differential from what you
Speaker 1: see on SNL. It's not that slim.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 1: I love James Austin Johnson's Trump impression on SNL. He's
Speaker 1: a genius. But you know what, someone who calls herself
Speaker 1: d doo dah on TikTok, she's not bad herself. If
Speaker 1: you wanted to find a random what looks to be
Speaker 1: high school student with just three thousand followers whose Trump
Speaker 1: impression in her own words is quote if he was
Speaker 1: a baby or had inhaled helium, well here for yourself,
Speaker 1: baby Trump.
Speaker 3: On the way to the airport. I like my suitcase, frankly,
Speaker 3: but I've seen like very big ones in China, frankly,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking that I want my mommy to buy
Speaker 3: me a bigger ones. I'm not very statisfied.
Speaker 1: What can I say? The sight of a girl who
Speaker 1: can't be a day over sixteen doing a Trump impression
Speaker 1: kills me every time. Now, the thing to keep in
Speaker 1: mind here is d doo dah isn't some rare hidden
Speaker 1: gem on TikTok. More like a dime a dozen. You see,
Speaker 1: TikTok is like a metal detector for sucking all the
Speaker 1: needles from the haystack. The algorithm sees what you like
Speaker 1: and seamlessly hits you with like ten more of the
Speaker 1: same thing. And I understand these people that I'm finding
Speaker 1: on TikTok. They're not new or exclusive to the platform.
Speaker 1: They may even have bigger followings on other platforms where
Speaker 1: they got their start before moving to TikTok. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I've seen their videos years ago, but the point is
Speaker 1: that TikTok is the platform that made this experience sticky.
Speaker 1: I've been on Instagram YouTube for many years and have
Speaker 1: never felt anything like the rabbit hole drop that TikTok
Speaker 1: delivers every time out. And there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: types of comedy to choose from. I've gotten into this
Speaker 1: whole cottage industry of teachers who like to imitate their
Speaker 1: young students. And I'm a dad, so there's like five
Speaker 1: hundred men out there contributing dad jokes into my feed
Speaker 1: in an endless supply. And as a married man, I
Speaker 1: also enjoy the entire genre of couple's humor, where real
Speaker 1: life husband and wives who fancy themselves comedy duos dissect
Speaker 1: relationship pitfalls pretty endlessly. I think my favorite is a
Speaker 1: well known TikTok pairing Alex and John, who have millions
Speaker 1: of followers.
Speaker 3: John, are you serious? What can you not pick this up?
Speaker 2: They're not in the way.
Speaker 3: It's lazy, John. We both live here, Okay, it's a mess.
Speaker 3: Pile of your clothes, Well that's different. They're on a chair,
Speaker 3: so they're elevated out of the way.
Speaker 2: It's a pile of shit, just like mine.
Speaker 3: It is not a It is an organized mess, and
Speaker 3: I know where everything is.
Speaker 2: I just can't admit that we're the same. And it
Speaker 2: just kills you to know that we both have a
Speaker 2: pile of shit. But for some reason you think your
Speaker 2: pile of shit is better than mine.
Speaker 3: But it's not fine. I won't talk about your pile
Speaker 3: of shit if you don't talk about mine.
Speaker 1: Honestly, you watch these two long enough and you'll understand
Speaker 1: why comparisons to TV classics like I Love Lucy and
Speaker 1: The Honeymooners aren't so far fetched. Whether the comedy is
Speaker 1: thirty minutes or in the case of Alex and John,
Speaker 1: sometimes like thirty seconds, the connection is pretty clear. And
Speaker 1: to bring this back to what I was saying about
Speaker 1: TikTok as a TV substitute, this is a perfect example
Speaker 1: Alex and John feel to me like the kind of
Speaker 1: couple centric sitcoms I used to watch all the time
Speaker 1: but just don't see on TV anymore. I mean, forget
Speaker 1: about couple sitcoms. I don't find myself watching sitcoms at all. Really,
Speaker 1: And have you seen a comedy in a movie theater lately?
Speaker 1: Come to think of it, I think you could draw
Speaker 1: an even broader conclusion that the vast array of comedy
Speaker 1: you can overdose on TikTok comes at the expense of
Speaker 1: the rest of media. I just don't think it's a
Speaker 1: coincidence that comedy could not seem more dead in film
Speaker 1: and TV right now, while on TikTok it's alive and well.
Speaker 1: Now I realize I've been painting a picture in this
Speaker 1: podcast of TikTok standing apart from the rest of culture.
Speaker 1: But after the break I'll get into why that's not
Speaker 1: an accurate picture entirely. We are back with my endless
Speaker 1: jeremiad about the state of television and the triumph that
Speaker 1: I think TikTok has had its expense. And look, it's
Speaker 1: not that pop culture as we know it is absent
Speaker 1: from TikTok. Now TikTok is very much in dialogue with culture,
Speaker 1: but instead of just being like another TV channel or
Speaker 1: movie theater or streaming service or the performer and programs
Speaker 1: djor distribute their content, TikTokers meet these brands on their
Speaker 1: own terms, and those terms are typically through the filter
Speaker 1: of fan worship or ridicule. Like any other social platform,
Speaker 1: it's where the water cooler conversation happens, even though the
Speaker 1: content that spurs the conversation isn't available on the platform.
Speaker 1: For instance, if there's one TV show I've Stuck with
Speaker 1: its White Lotus, but no episode is complete without watching
Speaker 1: all the satirical reactions each episode prompts, the most famous
Speaker 1: of which is mining maximum yucks out of every heavily
Speaker 1: accent accented utterance from Parker Posey's mouth. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about sharing the post, it's each user putting their
Speaker 1: own unique spin on it, like this one set to
Speaker 1: auto tune.
Speaker 2: Like I love tsunami, no hyper no bis no, And
Speaker 2: then you know, we just played on that, so it
Speaker 2: just started to grow and grow.
Speaker 1: To take it a step further, I'll take you back
Speaker 1: to a recent episode of this podcast in which I
Speaker 1: interviewed the head of research at Warner Brothers Discovery, who
Speaker 1: shared research suggesting that while social video consumption is drawing
Speaker 1: away eyeballs from studio content, it's also very much a
Speaker 1: valuable promotional driver to that content off platform, like back
Speaker 1: on a Netflix or at your local cineplex or what
Speaker 1: have you. These are fan accounts I follow that spit
Speaker 1: out nothing but clips of TV shows I enjoyed ages
Speaker 1: ago but had no plans to revisit. Like community and
Speaker 1: entourage that make me reappreciate enough to increase the likelihood
Speaker 1: of me revisiting an episode. But I think TikTok serves
Speaker 1: an additional function as something of a highlight reel for
Speaker 1: content I'm just not going to follow back to the
Speaker 1: TV because the excerpted clips from that programming is how
Speaker 1: I want to consume it. With all due respect to
Speaker 1: the great late night comedians like Colbert and Kimmel and
Speaker 1: John Stewart, on and on, I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: down for a long form linear TV experience. I want
Speaker 1: the best moments from those shows sliced and diced in
Speaker 1: my feed, or I'm just not going to watch it
Speaker 1: at all. Sorry. And the same goes for news content.
Speaker 1: Whether it's coming from twenty four hour news networks or newspapers,
Speaker 1: all of them have TikTok accounts. But I will say that,
Speaker 1: unlike with comedy, where I find myself enjoying lots of
Speaker 1: new personalities and in addition to a highlight reel of
Speaker 1: establishment figures, with news, I find myself sticking to the
Speaker 1: tried and true brands. I know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: amateur commentators and analysts doing their thing on TikTok, but
Speaker 1: it just doesn't do it for me, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to forget to acknowledge that TikTok has been home
Speaker 1: to lots of different experimentation and narrative driven storytelling but
Speaker 1: in short form formats. But like news, nothing really is
Speaker 1: stuck with me yet, though I have a feeling maybe
Speaker 1: that's just a matter of time. Take the Chinese microdrama Fomenon,
Speaker 1: for instance. They maintain a healthy presence on TikTok, though
Speaker 1: that's really just a promotional platform for driving consumers off
Speaker 1: platform to apps of their own, like Real Short and
Speaker 1: Drama Box. Look. I find most of this content unwatchable.
Speaker 1: It's just not my cup of tea. But when you
Speaker 1: see this ferment of creativity. You have to wonder whether,
Speaker 1: as unthinkable as it sounds, there's an inevitability to TikTokers
Speaker 1: cracking the code on the kind of content it will
Speaker 1: feel more directly competitive with traditional dramas. Maybe the closest
Speaker 1: thing to that is a whole genre of what I'd
Speaker 1: call confessional videos, where real people of all kinds candidly
Speaker 1: share from the struggles in their lives on TikTok, and
Speaker 1: they interact with the fan bases they build there. It's
Speaker 1: pure monologues, but they have that voyeuristic frison you get
Speaker 1: from watching good reality TV. There's so much more I
Speaker 1: get out of TikTok. We'd be here all day if
Speaker 1: I drilled too deep into any one of the many
Speaker 1: categories of content that float my boat. Like I'm an
Speaker 1: avid road biker, so I watch videos of bikers in action.
Speaker 1: Been playing a lot of basketball lately, So I watch
Speaker 1: instructors break down all sorts of shooting mechanics used to
Speaker 1: DJ but back in my younger days, And so I
Speaker 1: have endless appetite for watching amateur spinners honkered over their MPCs,
Speaker 1: pounding out homemade beats. But this infinite variety also works
Speaker 1: against TikTok. I believe you see. The algorithm is like
Speaker 1: this machine gun with incredible aim, mowing down every interest
Speaker 1: I have. But here's the thing. Sometimes I'm in the
Speaker 1: mood for biking videos. Sometimes I want to listen to
Speaker 1: the DJs. Sometimes I want memes. But TikTok doesn't hand
Speaker 1: me a menu of my favorite subjects and ask me
Speaker 1: which one I like. As powerful as its algorithm is,
Speaker 1: it insists on pushing everything I like to me indiscriminately
Speaker 1: in one feed. As amazing as TikTok has been its
Speaker 1: sucking the wind out of TV, it falls short for
Speaker 1: me by not taking TV's more channel centric approach. It's
Speaker 1: made me visualized. TikTok is like one big, unprecedentedly powerful pipe.
Speaker 1: At one end of the pipe, it draws from a
Speaker 1: veritable ocean of content choices, somehow hoovering out of that
Speaker 1: ocean just the things I like with astonishing speed and accuracy.
Speaker 1: But what's not remarked upon as much is the other
Speaker 1: end of the pipe is just this hydrant blast when
Speaker 1: what I'd rather have as a ux that knowing what
Speaker 1: I'd like separates each droplet, so to speak, into separate categories. Yes,
Speaker 1: I could go into TikTok account settings and adjust the
Speaker 1: topic bars, but those aren't my topic labels, And even
Speaker 1: if they were, why not bring that topic orientation to
Speaker 1: the front of the TikTok ux instead of hiding it away.
Speaker 1: But in the scheme of the bounty TikTok brings, maybe
Speaker 1: that's just a quibble. When I'm thumbing constantly, it reminds
Speaker 1: me of something I don't do anymore on TV, channel flipping.
Speaker 1: But what decades ago is treated as a nuisance. The
Speaker 1: experience of channel flipping, I think, is going to be
Speaker 1: a mode of viewing in its own right. When the
Speaker 1: tiktokification of TV truly begins, the manic thumb swiping that is,
Speaker 1: the modern day version of channel flipping or surfing, will
Speaker 1: be something we'll actually happily spend time doing, perhaps as
Speaker 1: much time as we spend on a long form show. See,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to put my nostra damas hat on here.
Speaker 1: I get it. I mean, call me a zealot for
Speaker 1: my newfound religion. But this format TikTok and its copycats
Speaker 1: are employing, this isn't just a format for a particular
Speaker 1: kind of social app I'm convinced this is the evolution
Speaker 1: of what the personal video experience will be, certainly much
Speaker 1: more so than a TV's electronic programming guide or the
Speaker 1: tile soup of choices you have to navigate on the
Speaker 1: spot of your choice. I've come to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: for better or for worse, this is where it's all
Speaker 1: going where whether you're watching on your phone, and this
Speaker 1: is where you want to question by sanity larger screens
Speaker 1: like your living room TV. Yep. Maybe that's the most
Speaker 1: surprising realization I've had as a TikTok user, that this
Speaker 1: format it pioneered, that seems so inextricably tied to the
Speaker 1: mobile device, seems to me not mobile specific at all.
Speaker 1: I fully anticipate the TikTok format, right down to all
Speaker 1: its wonderful esthetic particularity, will seep so thoroughly into TV
Speaker 1: in the coming years that I won't even be surprised
Speaker 1: if living room walls start to get adorned by screens
Speaker 1: that will hang vertically instead of horizontal. The phone could
Speaker 1: become a remote control for swiping, or maybe the remote
Speaker 1: control as we know it will lose more than a
Speaker 1: few buttons to make room for a thumb swipe, and
Speaker 1: the PayTV and svod UX's will take their cue from
Speaker 1: this too. As the line between short and long form
Speaker 1: video increasingly blurs, perhaps the typical TV future will be
Speaker 1: more like NTV moving from one music video sized program
Speaker 1: to another than the current thirty or sixty or one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty minute blocks of movie or TV show.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying are going to go away, but they
Speaker 1: will seed significant ground to the short form videos in
Speaker 1: viewing time. It would be pretty star contrast from today's
Speaker 1: video platforms, which are entirely separated by the size of
Speaker 1: the content, though YouTube is clearly leading the charge in
Speaker 1: erasing that distinction. Though TikTok's bread and butter maybe short
Speaker 1: form today, I wonder are we really that far away
Speaker 1: where it will exceed that current ten minute cap it
Speaker 1: has on video and start to home in on Netflix's territory.
Speaker 1: Of course, that could also go vice versa, and we've
Speaker 1: seen streaming services do some experimentation with short form content,
Speaker 1: though nothing notable to date. But I think where this
Speaker 1: is all going is that the short form content, it
Speaker 1: won't just coexist with long form content on the same platforms,
Speaker 1: but it will become a springboard into long form. This
Speaker 1: takes me back to the Warner Brothers research I spoke
Speaker 1: about earlier. I just think this is going to become
Speaker 1: a big driver, but I think it'll get mechanized, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Like you'll watch a clip of White Lotus
Speaker 1: if you like it, it will have a button linking
Speaker 1: you to a long form episode two, and I'd say
Speaker 1: that would go for the rest of TV two. But
Speaker 1: I think there will be a lot of TV program
Speaker 1: brands that will actually minimize or cease to exist in
Speaker 1: any long form container. The advertising market will catch up
Speaker 1: to a point where, say Stephen Colbert's show will cease
Speaker 1: to exist as an hour long show, existing instead is
Speaker 1: a series of short form segments. I really believe this
Speaker 1: is going to happen just as soon as the advertising
Speaker 1: market catches up. Speaking of advertising, as we head towards
Speaker 1: the upfront season in the TV industry, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about YouTube as the new TV, and
Speaker 1: rightfully so. The notion that TV viewing has exceeded mobile
Speaker 1: viewing in the US, as the company recently announced, that's
Speaker 1: a staggering achievement. Truth be told, I cannot understand why
Speaker 1: TikTok hasn't made a stronger bid for TV domination, like
Speaker 1: team up with a TV manufacturer to make a linked
Speaker 1: line of TikTok TVs. I wonder whether that's going to
Speaker 1: end up a fatal flaw too late to correct. If
Speaker 1: TikTok is not careful they're inviting one of their copycats
Speaker 1: to seize that opportunity. As much as I've said so far,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm really just scratching the surface of
Speaker 1: how TikTok's clip scroll format will become the future. Hell,
Speaker 1: I haven't even addressed the e current e commerce element
Speaker 1: of TikTok, which end up which may end up the
Speaker 1: most game changing contribution the act makes, given the early
Speaker 1: success of TikTok Shop, breathless as I'm being look, I'm
Speaker 1: mindful of the fact that I'm just six months into
Speaker 1: my TikTok experience. Perhaps there's a honeymoon period and in
Speaker 1: time I will tire of the clip scroll format, or
Speaker 1: something better that's not even on the market yet will
Speaker 1: come along and revolutionize the video delivery space all over again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, the thing I can't get over is I underestimated
Speaker 1: the power of TikTok. Honestly, my perception of the app
Speaker 1: coming into this was antiquated. I realized in retrospect, colored
Speaker 1: by what seems like the endless reign of the Damelio
Speaker 1: sisters from like, I don't know, seven eight years ago,
Speaker 1: they were the app's first stars. I just assumed that
Speaker 1: was kind of the sensibility of TikTok going forward, like
Speaker 1: it's just a bunch of clips of weird dances. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's what made my immersion in this app
Speaker 1: all the more unlikely. And what was I doing on
Speaker 1: this app at my age? I'm so preoccupied by that,
Speaker 1: And so I researched TikTok demographic data just to see
Speaker 1: how unusual that was. Research firm Data Reportal estimates that
Speaker 1: four point three percent of TikTok users are men between
Speaker 1: the ages of forty five and fifty four. So, no,
Speaker 1: I guess I don't have a lot of company. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is my version of a midlife crisis. I mean,
Speaker 1: most middle aged men by a convertible or get an earring.
Speaker 1: I use TikTok. I'm not sure what's more pathetic, But
Speaker 1: now I choose to look at it differently. I rationalize
Speaker 1: that I'm really more like an early adopter among the olds,
Speaker 1: the first wave of a broader demographic shift that will
Speaker 1: transform the demographic makeup of these clip scrolling apps, maybe
Speaker 1: drive more product evolution that makes these platforms even more
Speaker 1: welcoming to Generation X and even the boomers. For now, though,
Speaker 1: I'm just one old man who happens to have become
Speaker 1: TikTok's newest fan.
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