A lot of promoting at present focuses on chasing the newest TikTok pattern. Catching the ‘subsequent large factor’ simply as it’s taking off, then watching the cultural clout dissolve because the pattern disappears as shortly because it appeared, is an exhausting enterprise. It typically has creators struggling to maintain up and advertising and marketing groups, notably of larger manufacturers, publishing outdated meme codecs days too late. 

The explanation for it is a widespread mindset that TikTok is a instrument. One with which to achieve shoppers by means of advertising and marketing, sponsorships, and advertisements; to trace their engagement; to find new artists; and for audiences to speak with one another. But this fast-growing, trend-setting, and typically controversial platform is far more than that. Viewing it as such misses the forest for the timber. 

Because the digital content material market fragments into ever-tinier niches, the aim is to reconcile the default demand for personalisation with long-lasting, widespread model recognition and cultural clout that may ship long-term worth. This stability is greatest achieved by means of scenes, which prolong past content material itself – merging the calls for of nichification with the clout worth of mainstream. Scenes are subcultures and / or actions, incorporating music, TV reveals, video games, aesthetics, way of life decisions, and distinctive linguistic traits inside the related group. They’ve fandom attributes of bonding similar-minded folks and giving them a group house the place they will ‘be themselves’. Their worth spreads by means of identify recognition and the suggestions loop with different scenes and mainstream discourse. 

Trending aesthetics like cottagecore, or music like sea shanties, are sometimes mistaken for scenes on their very own – earlier than disappearing simply as shortly as they arose within the first place. Nevertheless, they lack the true roots of a scene that go far deeper than simply the content material typically related to it. It’s because they’re all subgenres of a bigger scene: TikTok itself. 

TikTok has many subgenres, however all of them comply with the identical sample. A pattern seems on the app. Contributors model themselves as the newest iteration of “goblincore” or “cabincore” or “adventurecore”. Viral remixes play in golf equipment and crowds take part with the dances they realized on the app. The ‘sounds’ of the app are likely to possess comparable qualities; a robust hook, with roughly 30 seconds of extremely emotive lyrics supposed to go viral. Visually, movies are excessive distinction, rapid-paced, and infrequently use common filters, giving all of them the same aesthetic. Probably the most ardent contributors personal ring lamps to make use of in movies, comply with sure video codecs to get views, and can purchase and publish movies about trending merchandise on the app, be they the TikTok leggings, Stanley cups, or no matter else is new and massive that week. Even language is altering, with the app having its personal linguistic tradition formed by what performs properly on – and what’s punished by – the algorithm. Relatively than referring to any explicit pattern in isolation, folks speak about “TikTok teenagers”, “TikTok dances”, or “TikTok music”; the precise pattern is the manifestation, however the widespread denominator is the platform itself.

In different phrases, TikTok has  the trimmings of what we might wherever else name a scene. So, why does this matter? 

If TikTok is a scene, then it inherently turns into aggressive for different scenes to make use of the app to construct their profile. Constructing a scene requires going past TikTok, if for no different cause than to monetise. It means getting followers onto extra direct-to-fan platforms, to different streaming providers, or out to dwell occasions. That’s  a click on away from the app, and away from the promoting that drives its revenues. No marvel, then, that creators are discovering it onerous to truly construct fan bases on the app; if TikTok is conscious of its place as a scene, it will naturally comply with to attempt to preserve creators as merely single faces amongst 1000’s, all contributing semi-anonymously to the larger image that’s TikTok itself. 

This additionally has large implications for A&R and different kinds of scouting, which search for the figures behind the newest traits, however are likely to falter as soon as they attempt to carry them out of the app. If the artist was part of the scene that’s TikTok, transplanting them into one other scene – or making an attempt to make that shallow-rooted pattern a scene of its personal – is a a lot tougher ask than merely shifting platforms.

There are exceptions, in fact. Simply as any scene has its family, YouTube and Instagram have their very own cultures. Creators can determine learn how to use the app to their benefit after which broaden, shifting past the unique scene – simply as many artists have outgrown genres up to now. However chasing the newest pattern is not going to essentially add worth to the model chasing it – it simply lends worth to TikTok, the scene they’re chasing it in. 

After all, ought to TikTok be banned within the US, it may disrupt a lot of this current dynamic. Moreover, latest strikes, like Common eradicating its music catalogue from the app, are calling the general dynamic into query, in a real-time case examine on who’s giving extra worth to who. But, with these negotiations nonetheless taking part in out, it’s value it for everybody – from artists to manufacturers – to ask: is TikTok working for you, or are you working for TikTok?