The Impact Of TikTok On Society, Culture, And Individuals

What is Pop Culture?

The definition of “pop culture” may differ from person to person depending on the understanding they have regarding the terms “popular” and “culture”. According to O’Brein and Szeman (2018), the term “pop culture” means popular culture and not “high culture” as people’s perception of high culture is activities done or enjoyed by rich people. Popular culture includes all those products, practices, activities, texts, zone of music, films and so on that are liked by a huge number of people. There are many varieties of definitions of culture within which one definition addresses this word as the way of organizing life and activities in a society that includes art, rituals (daily rituals such as meals and work or religious rituals), family structure, sex, and sports. In the 20th century, social media platforms exert a significant impact on the emerging pop culture. One of the most trending platforms is Tiktok. Tiktok is a mobile application that allows people to watch, make and upload filtered short videos. 

This paper discusses the impact of social platforms such as TikTok on various aspects of society, culture, and individuals. To continue with this discussion an argument or thesis statement has been made which is to be analyzed in the next sections of the paper. The paper provides valuable insights regarding how the algorithm of Tiktok works and how this can create a negative impact on individuals and also the contribution of TikTok culture to the creation of body image issues and other kinds of stereotypes. The argument made in this paper is as follows:   

Argument: Tiktok is feeding the present pop culture by providing the easiest way of quenching the thirst of people to create an existence in the virtual world. However, these kinds of platforms are harmful to society in the long term for many reasons. 

In support of this argument, some facts will be discussed in this section that is divided into some sub-parts: 1) the impact of the trending videos on stereotypes regarding body image issues in society, 2) the impact of Tiktok’s privacy policies on individuals. In addition to this, the case of influence marketing has been presented by showing the pros and cons of using Tiktok as a platform for promotional activities.  

Tiktok is considered one of the most popular apps in the world. According to Ceci (2022), the number of Tiktok users in the world in 2020 was 184 million. This video-sharing app provides its users with a way to express themselves and showcase their creativity in front of the world as the contents of this app are made by the users themselves. For some people, it is just an easy way to get some attention or become popular in the peer group. Tiktok generates a sense of virtual existence in the psyche of its users. People post self-made videos and get likes and followers on their posts which gives them the pleasure of being seen by people. However, it poses threats to society in many ways. According to O’Brein and Szeman (2018), the negative and stereotypical representation can cause political consequences and may affect the minority group in a negative way. Thus, the trend-setting videos, posted on this platform, impact the values of young adults negatively. Tiktok offers its users some filters through which one can see her/himself as an owner of a so-called “perfect” body and the people posts their lip-sync to dance videos according to the unrealistic standards of a “perfect” body/look set by society. Liu (2021) has addressed this issue in one paper which shows how the trend-setting videos are impacting the structure of the human shame phenomenon in our society. The author has observed one trend set by the TikTok videos named “karmaisabitch” where a person is seen as a person with a so-called “unattractive appearance” at the beginning of the video who then turns into a more fashionable and stylish person at the end. There is a common theme in all those videos that is the initial unattractive appearance has been represented by being overweight, having acne and other medical issues or not-so-stylish or having less confidence or a soft behavior and the concept of beauty or openness has been represented by a bold look, (with expensive and stylish clothes, jewelry, and hairstyles) and a behavior change (that is being confident, sexy, and a change in body pattern to slim). This video and its substitutes have over 4 million followers on Tiktok from which it can be understood that so many people did not consider this trend as an exercise of unrealistic and abnormal sense of physical shame. These kinds of videos have a great influence on the creation of stereotypes (such as ‘thin body is a perfect body/healthy body’) that are detrimental to the culture, and value judgment system of the society. The media and advertisement trends have a significant impact on the posing techniques of men and women in these videos where both are seen to present their body image as romantic and sexualized objects, thus creating an unfriendly environment for the transgender, LGBTQ communities. These people with biases against body image create problems for others such as invisible bullying in the workplaces and educational institutions. Not only the user-made videos but the comment section of these videos are flooded with comments which exert peer pressure and abnormal physical shame as many people use this section to criticize the appearance of the protagonist in the video.  Thus, one group of biased people is being victimized by the other group of biased people.  

The Emergence of Social Media Platforms and TikTok

Here, comes the question that why so many people are fans of Tiktok and how a video-making trend that exposes stereotypes related to body image issues can reach so many people within a short time. The answer lies in Tiktok’s algorithm. TikTok's business is centered on its algorithm which tracks the user history to understand the preferences and requirements of the users. Then, they use these data to send personalized and user-specific recommendations of videos to the user to expand the customer base. The good side of this policy is that the viewers don't have to waste time searching for their favorite content as they are getting recommendations based on their preferences directly on their phones. The previous research has shown that most users do not read the terms and conditions or the privacy policies with keen attention but click on the button of agreement just to be able to access the content or features of the app. This is the result of the company’s policy that creates an obstacle between the customers and their content. Santos & Klug (2021), have studied some popular Tiktok users to understand their perception and awareness about the privacy policy of this company. From this study, they found that the users sometimes don't recognize the importance of reviewing these privacy policies because this has no physical appearance. Moreover, by agreeing to these policies they can get free entertainment which acts as an incentive to use the app even after knowing the problematic privacy policy. The users had shown a tone of hesitance while speaking about these recommendations of Tiktok. They confirmed that they find it scary how they got recommendations about stuff they never shared with anyone. They become confused as many users don't have a clear idea that this app regularly accesses personal data from the Tiktok app, their phone as well as from the other apps.  However, people don't know how to protect their data from the surveillance of Tiktok and can't discontinue using this platform as it is allowing them to get entertainment and virtual recognition in the easiest way possible. Though in this paper the prime focus is on Tiktok, the other companies also operate through a similar kind of system, the users of all such companies are knowing or unknowingly giving away their personal information to the company’s systems. However, the effect of this privacy policy on people can vary from person to person depending on their concept of privacy or how they see this total process of gathering their private data to provide better service. According to Xue (2016), some people don't feel uncomfortable sharing personal data as they think the pro-surveillance can help them in proving their innocence (in case they are accused of being engaged in any kind of crime or conspiracy) that is the fact that they did not hide anything could only mean they have nothing to fear about or lose. Some people don't understand the relevance of their data to those companies due to increased physical distance between the companies and themselves and end up ignoring this issue. Inability to understand and control what marketers can learn about them make some people resign from using the digital platforms and generate frustration among people as people start to feel helpless. To describe this behavior some researchers use the concept of “rational fatalism" which means if people start to believe that they have little control over something they stop taking any action to make any changes. It's more like, that people have started to think sharing personal data is the cost of gaining the service from these kinds of a company as nothing should be considered completely free.  

The Argument: TikTok's Impact on Society

Saying all the negative impacts, it is important to discuss the opportunities that have been created by Tiktok for emerging and established businesses. According to Haenlein et. al. (2020), influencer marketing has established its place as an innovative way to promote a brand where the social media influencers and actors, singers, sportspersons, and other celebrities are given contracts to promote any product or brand. As more and more people are shifting their preference to different social media platforms and the digital world the market for social media influencers is booming fast. Social media platforms such as Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube, and others are being used by most of the younger generations in the world as it can be found that most of the users of these platforms can be considered young adults. Hence, e-commerce or other businesses targeting the young population can operate on Tiktok for promotional purposes. However, the marketing department of many companies is not fully aware of the significant impact of influencer marketing on their marketing operations. Some of them as well as many influencers don't have a complete awareness of the guidelines and rules mandated by the FTC or Federal Trade Commission. Thus, influencer marketing can be dangerous if the influencers does any mistakes such as stating some false or partial true concepts. To sum up the above discussion it can be said that the users of Tiktok have only a little awareness of the legal instruments regarding the privacy policy or how the platform operates and how it should operate.

Conclusion

This essay aimed to analyze the impact of social media platforms such as Tiktok on emerging pop culture and society. To serve this, one argument has been made with the supporting pieces of evidence discussed in the previous section. From the above discussion, it can be seen that the video-sharing app influences society in a negative way, or rather most Tiktok users use this platform to criticize others in terms of their appearance. On the other hand, the users’ search data from other apps are being used by the company to enhance customer engagement with the company. The discussion has shown that the perception of people about the privacy policy of Tiktok does not quite match the actual process. Those who can understand the whole process feel powerless to keep connections with the world and for getting free entertainment they need to use those apps (such as Tiktok) but they have little control over the way these companies do surveillance on their personal lives. Hence, they either stop using these apps or allow these companies to keep doing this surveillance in exchange for free entertainment. Although the above discussion has focused on describing the negative impacts of Tiktok on culture and society, the positive side of the same should also be recognized. This platform also has created an opportunity of doing promotional activities for emerging companies. Thus, the essay concludes by providing an analytical description of the positive and negative sides of the growing use of Tiktok in pop culture.  

Reference

Ceci, L., 2022. Global TikTok Android MAU 2022 | Statista. [online] Statista. Available at:

<https://www.statista.com/statistics/1090669/tiktok-mau-worldwide-android/> [Accessed 9 April 2022].

De Los Santos, M., & Klug, D. (2021, January). The TikTok Tradeoff: Compelling Algorithmic Content at the Expense of Personal Privacy. In 20th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM 2021), December 5–8, 2021, Leuven, Belgium. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10313202

Haenlein, M., Anadol, E., Farnsworth, T., Hugo, H., Hunichen, J., & Welte, D. (2020). Navigating the New Era of Influencer Marketing: How to be Successful on Instagram, TikTok, & Co. California management review, 63(1), 5-25. 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0008125620958166

Liu, J. (2021, June). The Influence of the Body Image Presented Through TikTok Trend-Videos and Its Possible Reasons. In 2nd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange (ICLACE 2021) (pp. 359-363). Atlantis Press. https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125957570.pdf

Szeman, I., & O'Brien, S. (2017). Popular culture: A user's guide. John Wiley & Sons. Chap 1 & Chap 3

Xue, L. (2020). Contradictions between public perception of privacy and corporate privacy policy: A case study of TikTok. 

https://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/20753/etd21073.pdf