Is that from TikTok?
By: Yasmine Qadada
Tags: Tiktok App, Generation Z, Quarantine, Fashion, Trends

Ava Lockman, a 16-year-old high school junior who lives in Seattle, Washington, is well-versed in TikTok. Lockman knows well the cultural impact of Tiktok in high school: “It’s definitely changed the culture a lot,” she said, “because now a lot of what you hear is like ‘did you see this on Tiktok?’ … or ‘do you want to do the dance?’’ Lockman also says that before the spread of COVID-19 and the closure of schools, it was common to see people making Tiktoks in the hallways and wearing popular trends, like sweatshirts with collared tops. She herself experienced how TikTok can increase demand — and scarcity for hot items.

“There was a sweater vest that I saw that somebody was talking about from Amazon,” she said, but when she went to check for the vest online, “like 20 hours after the video was posted…. it was sold out.”

Lockman’s experience is not unique: many products are often out of stock. Some of the most common sold-out items, for high school students and beyond, include self-care products like, The Ordinary’s peeling face mask and various Cerave products, making brands big and small, feel the influence of Tiktok.

On top of various fashion trends springing up in high schools, the most important part of TikTok culture that younger generations invest their time into is dancing. With this, content creators create original songs and dances that are broadcasted to thousands in seconds. These dances become distinct trends, with many recreating dances or songs, which benefit creators and musicians. The music industry uses the dance-centric approach to reach more audiences and to strategically place their songs on a viral platform. TikTok demonstrates the viral nature of dancing and music; with videos that reach millions of viewers worldwide in a few hours.

TikTok created a compilation of different people recreating Apodaca’s original video (@tiktok / TikTok)

It couldn’t have made itself more clear than the legendary rock band Fleetwood Mac feeling the impacts of Nathan Apodaca, aka DoggFace’s TikTok success. The Idaho potato worker made his playful TikTok because his truck had broken down two miles from his place of work. Along with the skateboard that he had with him and a bottle of cranberry juice, a viral TikTok was born. Carefully riding on his skateboard, Apodaca peacefully and happily rides down the side of the road jamming to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dream.” Clutching a bottle of Cranberry juice and breezing through the side of the highway, he ended up racking up to 35 million views. His post also increased the streaming and sales for “Dreams’’ 184% from before the video was posted. With a massive spike in streams, this single TikTok resulted in a new payday for the band. As well as the streaming increases, the video had reported an increase in Shazams for the song, meaning people, specifically younger generations, discovered the song. Younger generations are using an app that seamlessly incorporates older music. It brings not only more fans but also more participation in the industry as a whole.

Screenshots from Apodaca’s famous TikTok (@420doggface208 / TikTok)

TikTok invigorates the music industry and enables fans to use music as their voice. A working-class man now catapulted into TikTok stardom, along with a hefty Ocean Spray sponsorship, represents the impact of TikTok. Allowing any person with access to the Internet an opportunity to showcase their love for a song to the entire world.

The TikTok app creates community through the power of music. Since the creation of Apocada’s video, thousands have recreated his video, including the Governor of Montana and Jimmy Fallon. It is no wonder that music industry executives and insiders took note. Sony Music recently made a new agreement with TikTok, saying,

With this deal, the TikTok creator community will have access to sound clips from Sony Music’s massive catalog of current hits, cutting edge new releases, emerging favorites, iconic classics, and deep cuts from every genre of music for use in their TikTok content.

Tiktok not only influences trends pertinent to teenagers, like painting on clothes or D.I.Y. mullets, and larger industries like fashion and music, it’s also creeping into the political sphere. Users now utilize the app as a platform for sharing political ideologies. From Socialist Tiktok to Alt-Right Tiktok, there’s a community for all political affiliations. Although sites like Politifact fact check some posts, not all posts are guaranteed truth. With another platform spreading misinformation as well as disinformation, one can’t help but wonder if Tiktok does more harm than good. Lockman, when asked about Tiktok’s influence, spoke to its political impact, saying,

… There’s no middle ground on Tiktok. It’s kind of, you’re either left or right and it gets really fiery and um, I feel like in that aspect… It’s really bad for community and for just the division we already have going because it pits a lot of teenagers against each other and kind of makes them choose a drastic side…

Not only adding to the political divide among citizens, but the app has also reached the concern of politicians. Most notably, President Trump, in August, signed an Executive Order in an attempt to ban the app from U.S. app stores. His order states,

“TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users… This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

Various liberal users, including some of Gen Z, speculate that Trump’s decision to ban the app had nothing to do with national security, but rather a response to an effort to sabotage attendance turnout for his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma — by thousands of teenagers and K-Pop fans, who requested tickets but never showing — resulting in many empty seats. Although unsuccessful in the ban, two courts have thwarted the President’s efforts. No matter the real cause of the ban, the fact that a seemingly harmless app, that largely caters to teenagers, became a priority to one of the most powerful people of the land, and made it into a global conversation, speaks to how its influence is growing.

A smaller-than-expected crowd at President Trump’s Tulsa rally (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

From an app that was most used by twelve year-olds, that has now grown to global policies, TikTok’s power over different industries and aspects of culture, like clothing, music, and lifestyle trends is only growing. You may even be seeing and recreating these trends without even knowing that TikTok had inspired them in the first place.