Is TikTok here to stay or to go?

When you were little, did you ever participate in a fad that only lasted for a few months or maybe even just a few years? I for one, was a heavy collector of silly bandz and beanie boos who loved to make rainbow loom bracelets for hours. Once I decided to become a “beauty guru” where I would collect lip balm and hand sanitizers from Bath and Body Works and review them on Instagram. Yes I know, collecting hand sanitizers is a strange obsession to have as a little kid, but I will admit that I enjoyed it very much. 

Do you remember that time where flipping water bottles was an actual thing and spinning a fidget spinner was fascinating? I remember the days where I would walk into FAD, a store in Huntington for many years before it closed down, and look through all of the crazy gadgets and toys. I cannot forget wanting to buy everything, and being disappointed when my mom said no because she knew I would lose interest within a few weeks. These were the trends that made our childhood and we will look back on them forever.

Another fad that was very popular was Musical.ly, an app where people were able to film and post videos of themselves lip-syncing. Many people, including myself, joined the “muser family” and started filming videos of songs or scenes from movies. Eventually, people started to get famous from their videos.  Muser, Danielle Cohn, gained almost 4 million followers on Instagram and had more than 10 million on Musical.ly just from making videos on this platform. Jacob Sartorius, Baby Ariel, and Loren Gray were some other popular users as well. Although this app was very trendy, it was only a fad, so after a couple of years the user number went down and all of those videos and famous musers were seen as “cringe-worthy.” 

Around August of 2018, Musical.ly was purchased by a similar company called TikTok, which merged the two apps and users together to create a larger community. After that, Musical.ly was no longer to be found, but TikTok started to grow popular. Now this app, rather than lip-syncing, is about dancing and making relatable videos. Within this app, there are dances that are trends, of which only last for a few weeks before they become old. Anyone with a TikTok account can make a video. When finding a sound for their video, TikTok users can even go to a trending list and find the most popular songs so they can stay in the loop. 

Over the summer, many teens spent hours scrolling through TikTok and making videos, fantasizing over becoming “TikTok famous.” Let’s be honest, how many hours did you really spend looking at videos on the “For You Page?” A lot right? I too, spent way more time on that app than I should have. Whenever most teens hear songs that are on TikTok, they instantly think, “Hey, isn’t this the song from TikTok?”.  Just look at our pep rally this year. Many sports teams made a mashup of TikTok songs and dances as their pep rally choreography. TikTok has popularized new dance moves like the “Woah,” and more. This app has also created a new term to describe groups such as “e-girls/e-boys” and “vsco girls.” If you hear your fellow classmates in the hallways saying “I dropped my hydro flask, and I oop, sksksksk,” know that this phrase was also popularized by the app.

The real question is whether or not TikTok is a fad, or if it is here to stay as a social media platform. With all of the terms TikTok has brought to Generation Z and with new dances and trends constantly being created on the app, it seems like TikTok is here to stay permanently. However, when you see what happened to Musical.ly or even Vine, another social media app that was shut down, it seems that TikTok will eventually follow in their path. What do you think? Will TikTok’s popularity soon come to an end or is it here to stay for good?