{"id":3509,"date":"2016-03-06T02:49:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T21:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3509"},"modified":"2016-03-06T02:49:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T21:19:31","slug":"tiktok-tiktokban-chinese-app-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3509","title":{"rendered":"Who is Really Hurt By the TikTok Ban?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

E<\/span>veryone has seen a TikTok video, even if you have never made one.\u00a0The Indian government has just banned it, along with 58 other Chinese apps. Every since it hit the online world like a tsunami a couple of years ago, TikTok has been the bone of serious contention.\u00a0It\u2019s a bit like GST \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter whether you understand it, but there is no way to escape it. So it’s important to know who the ban will really hurt. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember that friend from college who posts <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a> videos, lip-syncing to famous Bollywood dialogues and songs? The ones where you watch and go \u201cWhy?\u201d That is probably a TikTok video. If you\u2019re wondering \u201cHang on, isn\u2019t that Musical.ly?\u201d, congratulations, you\u2019re catching up. Musical.ly was acquired by the <\/span>Chinese<\/span><\/a> company ByteDance in November 2017 and they merged it with their app TikTok in August 2018. TikTok has exploded worldwide and has more users than Reddit, Twitter, Skype, <\/span>Snapchat<\/span><\/a>, and LinkedIn. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s more surprising, that TikTok has gotten so popular so quickly, or that a Chinese product has lasted more than ten days. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the vanilla user, TikTok might just be an extension to Snapchat and Instagram. However, while \u201cstories\u201d disappear with time, on TikTok one can ensure that the embarrassment is etched into online history forever. People who dance showcase their <\/span>dancing<\/span><\/a> skills. People who are into fitness and health put up workout tips and videos. Fashion enthusiasts display new outfits everyday, and those who have nothing, upload pictures of food and their pets. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to classify TikTok as vanilla would not only be an understatement, it would also be wrong. For TikTok hosts everything from the simple, to the bizarre, to the extremely fucking weird. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve watched these videos with growing fascination and amusement every day, on FB pages with borderline offensive names like <\/span>Reptiles of Kurla<\/span><\/a>. Teenagers apply glycerine to their eyes and cry to emotional <\/span>Bollywood<\/span><\/a> songs from the \u201990s, showcasing more emotions in 15 seconds than John Abraham has in his entire acting career. The trend even has a special Facebook page dedicated to it, called \u201c<\/span>Boys who cry passionately on Musically India<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>For added effect, jam and juice are sometimes applied on the body to show blood and heartbreak. <\/span>

TikTok is not merely an app, it\u2019s an experience.<\/blockquote>
If you\u2019re not into drama, don\u2019t worry, there\u2019s a place for everyone on TikTok. Comedy skits are the rage. On downloading the app, the third video I saw was a man in a village jumping from the roof of his house to another roof with music from <\/span>Krrish<\/span><\/i><\/a> playing in the background. There were no safety precautions in place, nor was this some kind of prank \u2013 it was just 15 seconds of masti content. In another video, a bunch of guys were lip-syncing to a popular scene from <\/span>Phir Hera Pheri<\/span><\/i> that ends with Babu bhaiya being pushed into a swimming pool. In the TikTok video, the guy is pushed into an actual well in a farm by his friends as they try to recreate the scene. I laughed for a good two minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, there are <\/span>challenges<\/span><\/a>. Remember the ice bucket challenge? TikTok has its own array of challenges that regularly feature in their trending hashtags. In the #SoapChallenge, one had to put as many bubbles as you could in your hand and then blow them out to the app\u2019s slow motion effect. I know you believe you can visualise it, but believe me, it\u2019s like the <\/span>Trump<\/span><\/a> presidency \u2013 you cannot until you\u2019ve seen it. The #FaceChallenge was about mimicking 10 animal faces in 15 seconds. Watch out CGI, we\u2019re coming for those animated roles in Disney movies. In the #RotationChallenge, you had to turn on the selfie camera on your phone and then try rotating the phone 360 degrees in your hand. I tried it five times, and all I had to show for my efforts were a hurt ego and a sprained wrist. Clearly, I\u2019m far away from being a popular TikTok star.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TikTok is not merely an app, it\u2019s an experience. It\u2019s an avenue to a different world, a different India. It\u2019s not populated only by your friends, people like you, or those belonging to the same economic, social and cultural environment as you. It has made inroads into rural and small town India, and they\u2019re creating and sharing content in a massive way. It is what the meeting point of a Jio sim card and a <\/span>Netflix<\/span><\/a> account would look like. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The medium doesn\u2019t have a limitation of text, grammar, or language that many other <\/span>social media<\/span><\/a> networks suffer from. No one\u2019s trying to show you how great their life is or how someone spelt their name on a cup at Starbucks, like on Instagram. You don\u2019t need to know an American show reference or what a particular contextual <\/span>meme<\/span><\/a> means. To a large extent, it has eroded the rural-urban divide and made it a level playing field for everyone with a camera phone and data connection. You have a camera, basic editing features and 15 seconds to earn likes and comments, the medium\u2019s currency. \u201cMake every second count\u201d is TikTok\u2019s tagline (and also the working title for the movie to every guy\u2019s sex life). <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a tendency to dismiss the content as bordering on the extremes of <\/span>cringe<\/span><\/a>: Easy for us Netflix-watching, organic-cafe-frequenting, nihilist types who couldn\u2019t see earnestness if it hit them between the eyes. Sure, the videos on TikTok don\u2019t match up to the quality of content we\u2019re used to consuming. But what it has, is the spirit of rebellion against a generation defined by snark, the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of what is \u201ccool\u201d and what is \u201ccringe\u201d on the Interwebz. \u201cThis is how Dhinchak Poojas and <\/span>Taher Shahs<\/span><\/a> are born,\u201d the cool kids at Reddit are already up in arms. One must never forget though, that one man\u2019s earnest creative attempt is another man\u2019s cringe. On TikTok, there\u2019s place for everyone, and that is its beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TikTok is not merely an app, it\u2019s an experience. It\u2019s an avenue to a different world, a different India that has never been able to create content before the app. So who does the TikTok ban really affect?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":3510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[756,5362,804,200,354,1127,760,6672,6673,632,357,6674,111],"class_list":["post-3509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-android","tag-app","tag-apple","tag-china","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-ios","tag-musically","tag-short-video-content","tag-snapchat","tag-social-media","tag-tiktok","tag-twitter"],"yoast_head":"\nWho is Really Hurt By the TikTok Ban?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"TikTok is not merely an app, it\u2019s an experience. 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