The Seaside Standard ISSUE 3 SPRING 2021 The magazine of the students
HOW TIKTOK HAS INFLUENCED MUSIC MUSIC By Mwaba Mwiko
The Chinese company ‘TikTok’, originally named ‘Musical.ly’, was rebranded three years ago and today is the most downloaded app on the app store. Whether it’s the dances, inside jokes, or music, TikTok has a daily impact on most of our lives, especially it being a source of entertainment during quarantine and lockdown periods. TikTok has specifically had a large influence on the music industry, with many artists and hit songs making history through this app. Artists like Doja Cat, 24kGoldn and Don Toliver have had their songs go viral through dances created by famous “TikTokers”. Record labels now invest time and a lot of money for their artists’ music to get attention through this app. Huge marketing checks lead to huge streaming numbers, lead to big names, and bigger, better opportunities.
A meat cell is left to develop into a tissue, suitable to cook and eat
Lab-Grown Meat – will this really be in the supermarket? SCIENCE By Lucy Petit
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any companies are beginning to revolutionise the meat industry and food culture, their latest idea: a lab-grown chicken nugget. The process begins when a cell is taken from an animal and is grown in a lab to produce a culture
(called a cell line). These cells can come from a range of sources, from biopsies of living animals, fresh meat, cell banks and even the feathers of a chicken. The cell lines are then introduced to stem cells which can differentiate and mature into any cell. Once a good cell line is produced, being one that grows fast and ultimately tastily, they are then placed in a culture medium, where they can continue to proliferate, cell by cell, muscle by muscle, until a meat cell mush is produced which can then be formed into many products, from sausages to a chicken nugget! However, this is an expensive process, especially if it needs to be scaled up for mass production at a competitive price. Currently it costs $50 to make a single chicken nugget! CONTINUED »
However, there needs to be a balance to TikTok’s very strategic way of marketing. By this I’m talking of the loss of identity for artists, who may have previously made authentic music for their fanbases, prior to gaining popularity and entering the mainstream and often undistinguishable music industry of making music for commercial purposes. But is that wrong? Should we make a judgement? With its algorithm, users are likely only to be presented with an echo chamber of content based on what they ‘like’, which becomes an ongoing cycle of users consuming highly targeted and limited scope of the range of artistic expression available. This means different artistic mediums are driven out, which creates a lack of diversity in an artist’s fan base as only a song deemed to fit TikTok’s model and style of music may blow up. But what does this mean for the artist? Will their authenticity in their music decrease because an artist would rather their songs blow up over 15 second TikTok videos? How will the artist grow if they only cater to one fanbase, or is that what they want? Do they want to cater a specific audience on this platform for their personal income? Is it wrong to be more commercial if it’s an artist’s main source of income? What do you think?
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