I don't understand this idea that millions of Americans were somehow making income on TikTok, let alone "livelihoods." TikTok shut down its revenue sharing program in 2023! If you want to get paid on your TikTok you have to negotiate your own deals independent of the platform.
I've been writing a book about streaming for some time. This whole business has a very fleeting relationship with normality. To answer your q specifically: the "currency" of 2025 is viewing figures, follower numbers and perceptions.
used to work in streaming video tech and also got a twitch partner offer during COVID; can totally believe there's still endless amounts of smoke being pumped in
Revenue sharing never went away? You get paid through the Creator Fund for videos over 60s long. Many small businesses sold exclusively through the TikTok shop, which was the only effective place to market their products nationally. Instagram and Facebook are not alternatives.
There were literally millions of businesses who were solely advertising through TikTok, and to be frank, the influencers driving the rhetoric that *that's* what matters were drowned out by all the stories of people whose livelihoods were built on TikTok.
I think the concerns of individual economic devastation are exaggerated. For example, TikTok themselves does not claim to have "millions" of US advertisers.
They do have millions of retailers in the TikTok store marketing to US *users,* but that includes Chinese dropshippers et al.
I am given to understand that outside of the revenue sharing stuff that the algorithm was so aggressive it was great for getting the eyeballs you specifically needed onto your product. People spoke or massive upticks in business with a successful tiktok campaign.
I concede that for some *advertisers,* the platform was good at targeting users for relevance, and e.g. driving sales if you were a retail operation on the TikTok shop. But so much if the discourse is focused on the creator side, given the influencer accounts themselves are angriest about this.
Anecdotally I've heard TikTok monetizes poorly for creators compared to YouTube and Insta, but advertisers like it more than those platforms - which suggests TikTok is keeping most of the ad dollars themselves, and not sharing it with the people creating the content containing those ads!
My time on TikTok mostly consisted of watching a few videos before bed that consisted of funny skits and STEM people doing little informative breakdowns, currently there is no adequate replacement for that. Reels is so much worse functionally and as a company
and no matter how much time I spend on Shorts it still bases my recommendations off my YouTube algo, which is a very different kind of video than what I use YouTube for. But hey, I’m sure some day I’ll be as enlightened as all the junkies on this website that wailed about the loss of Twitter still.
I am genuinely a little unnerved. Like if you've found some community there, I get being sad. People I like and respect are. But the freakouts are junkie behavior.
Online psyop campaigns will get you killed before the dopamine, it's so bad that most people don't even know that chinas currently killing off their muslim population because tiktok doesn't want them to know.. Yet they'll cry in your face about israel and america as if they care. 🙄
Short form video is definitely way, way worse, because there's not even the distance that text naturally create. With the archetypal TikTok video, where a rando speaks authoritatively directly at the camera, you are psychologically primed to listen to them and implicitly trust them.
This phenomenon (trusting strangers as authoritative for no good reason because they're talking "directly to us") is something that *fully exists* in text based social media.
We'd have to argue that the magnitude in video formats is bigger or something. (hopefully with like, evidence.)
I don’t agree with this in the slightest, though I’m quite obviously not saying Twitter is good. But the place’s badness right now is due much more to decisions by ownership than by the form inherently.
So the theory behind the difference here is mainly that some aspect of the video itself is uniquely bad for your brain?
(since Twitter also has an algorithmic feed that's unique to each user, short snippets of content, context collapse, typical social media outrage bait, etc etc)?
Might be true in the end, but I find that idea hard to swallow.
(Probably could be studied!)
I don't think that everyone having big discourse around tiktok right now is focused on the "short form video" problem. Would be interesting to find out! (I read a lot of it as "addiction" complaint.)
There are very few creators/businesses making major money from TikTok who are not already diversified on other platforms.
I have a friend who has been successful in marketing her business on TikTok, but also invests in other platforms because putting all your marketing eggs in one basket is silly.
I understand why people are upset, and it's legitimate to a point, but acting like TikTok is the only game in town is misleading. If you're a creator doing content people find valuable, they'll follow you to new platforms.
Way more Americans work in the fossil fuel industry and most of them make good a living doing that. We should still regulate fossil fuels out of existence.
I’ve been threatened by students for taking their phones. I’ve had students yell at me and throw a temper tantrum, I’ve had students walk out over the phone usage. So yes I’m glad it’s banned
guy that tweets about the horrors of late stage capitalism all the time:
“Oh I guess you think it’s JUST GREAT that the schitzo woman doing ads for Amazon drop shipping products disguised as ‘home security measures’ is out of business now huh?!”
Only 105 million Americans that have Tik Tok accounts
Makes the claim that over a 1/3 of users are making $ seems unlikely especially since only 25% of users engage daily
but F the facts as long as some influencer is getting $ right 🙄
This gotta be the dumbest defense for tiktok. The influencer hustle grind economy is easily one of the greatest social cancers afflicting the developed world lol.
I found this that claims (with a pinch of salt) that 48% earn less than $15k annually, so if that’s correct it’s a fair assumption that 10% of Americans don’t earn a full time wage there
The underlying study claims 27 million influencers make 93k on average, ie a total 2.5 trillion. Influencer income is primarily ads/sponsorship. Total US ads budget is about .5 trillion. The study is wrong by 2-3 orders of magnitude. (It’s a self-reported survey; they lied).
Welp, I just know from the people I follow that the money they received has helped them buy homes, cars, start businesses and pay for their needs both medical and physical. That’s enough.
I hate that these people have no sympathy for the 14 trillion people whose children will be forced to starve while a senator laughs evilly because TikTok was banned 😭
Look, either someone was bright enough to make money off TikTok and will thus thrive again elsewhere, or were leeches on a wretched algo and we probs are better off they won't easily respawn.
Solid argument, why didn't I see anybody on here make it in defense of IG influencers two weeks ago when Zuck rolled over? And when I made vague noises in defense of FB buy nothing groups and marketplace, I got called weird for it. What is special about making money on tiktok vs meta?
I opened Instagram today to an influencer who just bought a house bigger than our entire apartment building sobbing over TikTok and it literally made me crash out. I wish my biggest stressor was a social media app.
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There were literally millions of businesses who were solely advertising through TikTok, and to be frank, the influencers driving the rhetoric that *that's* what matters were drowned out by all the stories of people whose livelihoods were built on TikTok.
They do have millions of retailers in the TikTok store marketing to US *users,* but that includes Chinese dropshippers et al.
so people will miss that.
Make no mistake. This is a weapon.
If the US govt had shut down twitter (at ~peak usage!) the meltdown would have put this to absolute shame
We'd have to argue that the magnitude in video formats is bigger or something. (hopefully with like, evidence.)
(since Twitter also has an algorithmic feed that's unique to each user, short snippets of content, context collapse, typical social media outrage bait, etc etc)?
(Probably could be studied!)
I don't think that everyone having big discourse around tiktok right now is focused on the "short form video" problem. Would be interesting to find out! (I read a lot of it as "addiction" complaint.)
They are, aren't they? Oh god. I'm old.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I have a friend who has been successful in marketing her business on TikTok, but also invests in other platforms because putting all your marketing eggs in one basket is silly.
As @jamellebouie.net puts it:
https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lf5vqnkxwk2u
Again, Can you provide a methodology for the large percentage of population you claim is making money on tiktok?
“Oh I guess you think it’s JUST GREAT that the schitzo woman doing ads for Amazon drop shipping products disguised as ‘home security measures’ is out of business now huh?!”
Only 105 million Americans that have Tik Tok accounts
Makes the claim that over a 1/3 of users are making $ seems unlikely especially since only 25% of users engage daily
but F the facts as long as some influencer is getting $ right 🙄
Perhaps someone attractive needs to stare into a camera and tell you you’re way too gullible.
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/tiktok-earning-stats