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Blog #9: Diffusion

       

   

    Remember when TikTok was called something else? Something different entirely? Before August 2018, the widely popular app known as TikTok used to be called Musical.ly. A simple phone app that allowed its users to create and post short videos of themselves dancing and lip-syncing to songs of their choice. Musical.ly was extremely popular, admittingly, when it was first released and featured. Now well-known creators like Lisa and Lena, Loren Gray, Baby Ariel, and many more were quick to follow and set every trend and dance. 

    Today, Musical.ly is no longer a brand name and instead has turned into the worldwide popular app called TikTok. TikTok is owned and run by an international company in China called ByteDance. The social media platform hasn't changed the initial reason for video creation. But it's changed all in the same. The short clips of Musical.ly now have a duration of 15 seconds up to a full minute with a wide variety of video genres from the original short lip-syncs to educational videos. 

    TikTok has always been popular with the crowd of users of all ages. The social media platform caught on because of its creative uses and easy accessibility. Almost everyone nowadays has TikTok on their phone and extremely uncommon not to have it. I remember when I first got my Android, my friends were trying to get me to download the app. Every single one of them had and used it frequently. My friends were so fascinated with the app as all of their friends had it and it became one of the top social media apps to have. Admittingly, I was a late adopter when it comes to TikTok. I hadn't downloaded and started using the app until the summer of 2020 even though it had been released as TikTok in 2018. 

    Some Musical.ly users, such as Lisa and Lena, decided not to continue with the transition to TikTok and delete their account completely. Others, like Loren Gray and Baby Ariel, made the transition happily and even grew their fan base because of it. One of the upsides to TikTok is that you are completely free to be yourself and almost free from embarrassment. From painters to singers to obsessed Harry Potter fans, the amount of creativity one app brought is crazy to think about.

    Of course, like every social media platform, there are downsides. I previously stated the twin duo known as Lisa and Lena decided to delete their account. Lisa and Lena had previously been the number one account and the go-to account for creative dance ideas. Back in 2019, the twins had decided to disband their account after a serious loss of interest in the app itself. They also stated they didn't want to support an app that is unsafe. TikTok stated their users' safety and security is their number one concern and claims to have never provided any government with any personal information or data. Nonetheless, accusations have been made that the app could undercover software even though the company released a public statement addressing the accusations saying they would refuse to release any information on their users if they were requested to do so.

    To conclude this blog post, every platform has both positives and negatives and it's imperative platform users are made aware of the risks. I don't believe the positives outweigh the negatives and vise versa. It's everyone's personal choice whether or not to get the app and if they feel it's unsafe, then that's their choice. But if they get it, they understand that risks that come with it.

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