The Royals of Tik Tok

LIFESTYLE The Royals of TikTok

HOW UP AND COMING CELEBRITIES LEVERAGE TIKTOK TO RISE TO FAME

By Jamie Randall, Staff Writer Graphic by Emma Gray, Assistant Arts Curator

In the 80s, it was MTV. In the early 2000’s it was Facebook, MySpace and eventually Instagram. For 2020, it’s TikTok. This app has managed to combine what users loved about Vine, Triller and Musical. ly all into one platform that promises endless curated content. From memes, to news, to dances, TikTok has it all and it is where millennials and Gen Z hop on trends, and a select few to rise to fame.

What is so new about TikTok is that everyone has the opportunity to go viral when they post. The people who have all risen to fame thanks to Tik Tok’s democratic algorithm are the true stars of the app. A few known names are Dixie and Charli D’amelio, Addison Rae and Jessica Woo. Additionally, traditional celebrities who were famous before Tik Tok, like Jason Derulo and JoJoSiwa, use it as another way to boost their popularity with new audiences. Companies like L’Oreal and Allure also use it to promote their brands. TikTok is clearly the jack of all trades here.

Queens of TikTok, Charli and Dixie D’amelio both show that anyone has the opportunity to become famous. The sisters rose to fame in the past year quickly and led fairly ordinary lives before that. Initially, Charli used TikTok to post her dance videos, since she was on her high school’s dance team; this is what initially gained her a lot of followers. Dixie, on the other hand, who is not a dancer, would make videos imitating Charli that also resulted in more followers on her account as well.

This growing fame led the girls and their parents to sign with an agency. A Cosmopolitan article states that “fans have found both distraction and guidepost” by watching these two stars on TikTok and other social media platforms.1 The D’Amelios have also been able to use their platform to talk about matters such as bullying, the Black Lives Matter Movement, body positivity and more, showing that they are more than just girls dancing on the Internet. They have truly become the figureheads of Gen Z TikTok stardom.

Known for starting every video with, “Let’s make some lunch for my kids!” Jessica Woo shows that even the simplest routine can attract fans. The article, “How this Mom of 3 become a TikTok sensation making lunch for her kids,” states “This is not fancy stuff. In one video, Woo unwraps a Smuckers Uncrustables sandwich and arranges it in a bento box with salt and vinegar chips, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and fruit snacks. Fourteen million people watched.”2

There are multiple videos on Woo’s account that show the variety of lunches she makes each day for her kids, and she states where to get the products she uses as well as where

1 Meredith Bryan. “Charli and Dixie Are Rewriting the Rules of Fame, One String Cheese at a Time.” Cosmopolitan,

September 23, 2020. 2 Harris, Jenn. “How This Mom of Three Became a TikTok Sensation Making Lunch for Her Kids,” August 18, 2020. the food comes from. Like the D’Amelio’s, Woo has also used her platform to show her support for a variety of issues the nation has faced recently.

Moving to TikTok is an easy switch for former reality TV stars who are comfortable in front of a camera and being open about their personal lives. Former “Dance Moms” star Christi Lukasiak has been using it to promote her new adulting business, alongside publicly coming to terms with her past on the reality show “Dance Moms.” Jason Derulo has released new songs like “Savage Love” that have resulted in new dances and people have been able to get creative using them in the videos.

The final question after seeing the variety of people who are famous on TikTok would have to be how does one actually go viral and gain a mass amount of followers on the app? This actually comes down to the algorithm. What influences the algorithm of TikTok is location, hashtags, music, captions, audience and your “likes.” All of these, combined with the information used to register a person’s account will factor in when creating a user’s For You Page.3

Anyone can participate in Tik Tok trends by using a popular sound and editing it using the app’s easy user interface to reach a desired audience. The more a user posts, the more other people will be able to see it. Stars like the D’Amelios did not get famous overnight, they had to post hundreds of entertaining videos. Tik Tok fame is not an easy goal, but the app can assure that your content will be shared and someone somewhere will connect with your videos. ■

3 Latermedia. “This Is How the TikTok Algorithm Works.” Later Blog, June 19, 2020. https://later.com/blog/tiktok-algorithm/.