TikTok Goes the Clock: A Rundown of Stuyvesant’s TikTok Usage

Every few years, a new social media platform seems to rise from obscurity and capture the attention of millions: Myspace in the mid-2000s, Facebook a little while after, then YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Vine. Now, TikTok, a platform for creating short dances, lip-sync videos, and comedy videos, is emerging as the latest Internet craze in 2020. The app first took off four years ago in China and later merged with American app Musical.ly after it was bought for $1 billion. While Musical.ly was almost universally perceived as embarrassing and an app for little kids, TikTok has (somewhat) shaken off this stigma and transformed into one of the most popular apps of our generation. Here at Stuyvesant, the app is no less popular.

The content on TikTok (aptly referred to as TikToks) varies: some people make comedic skits, some do well-known TikTok dances, and others sing. Each video is short—anywhere from a few seconds to around a minute. One of the main features of the app is its use of audio. Users can choose from a large library of audio ranging from popular songs to movie dialogues and use them in their own content. The app’s scrolling system makes it highly addicting: as soon as one finishes watching one TikTok, they can scroll to another one.

Sophomore Benjamin Hamel (@bben_hamel) mostly makes comedic TikToks that explore the realities of being a 16-year-old Stuyvesant student. “My TikToks are most surely under the comedy department, as people need to relieve themselves of their horrific stresses during these times,” Hamel explained. Hamel films TikToks both to entertain himself and to entertain others. “Comedy is a great way to relieve stress, and TikTok is a place to either laugh or make others laugh,” he said.

While TikTok is a great platform for relieving stress and escaping reality, it can take up a lot of time. Providing followers with content, Hamel explained, “comes at the price of sleep and/or doing my work to the quality that is expected of a Stuy student.” But Hamel takes his duties as a TikTok user seriously, perhaps more seriously than his duties as a student. Hamel shared, “I love TikTok, unlike school, and I think it’s a calculated decision.”

Unlike Hamel, junior Tiffany Wu has a different approach when it comes to splitting up her time between schoolwork and TikTok. “I usually delete it [TikTok] when school is in session,” Wu said. “But during breaks when I do use it, I end up scrolling through it for most of the day.” This system allows Wu to stay focused on her schoolwork while still being informed of the latest TikTok trends. Ever since school went virtual, Wu has found herself using the app a lot more. “My screen time last week was the highest it’s ever been this year at eight hours a day, and most of it is because of TikTok,” she admitted. Wu herself usually makes cooking TikToks “because they’re fun and easy to make,” though she does enjoy learning TikTok dances like Cannibal with her friends.

Students aren’t the only ones who can enjoy the content TikTok has to offer. English teacher Lauren Stuzin first started using the app after their students urged them to try it out. “I got TikTok after my sophomores told me like 10 thousand times to get it. They said ‘it’s better than Instagram,’ and ‘the only good content on Instagram is TikToks,’ and I kind of started to feel like they were right!” they said in an e-mail interview.

Though using TikTok can seem incongruous with Stuzin’s job as a teacher, they have found a way to meld their English course with TikTok. “I’ve seen kids filming in the halls [and] outside of school, [so] I asked students to make literary TikToks for the class. It blew up in a short amount of time, but I think that’s the Gen Z thing!” they said.

Though many Stuyvesant students are TikTok evangelists, the app doesn't appeal to everyone. Senior Joshen Zhang never had an interest in the app. “For apps like YouTube, Gmail, or even Reddit, I saw a reason for using it. In regards to YouTube, I could watch videos [that] taught me things or simply entertained me. Reddit is a way for me to quickly gather news on niche interests of mine,” he explained. Zhang believes that he isn’t missing out on much by not using TikTok.

Another concern that keeps Zhang from joining TikTok is its feeble privacy system, something that Stuzin also mentioned. “The app is destined for failure because it literally tracks everyone’s data,” Stuzin said. “I think, however, that this is a sign that Instagram and Facebook leave a lot to be desired, and we are all ready to start moving away from those platforms.”

It’s difficult to determine whether TikTok will maintain or continue to grow its popularity in the coming years. During quarantine, with all the extra time people now have, TikTok has had a massive surge in popularity as more people have switched from being just consumers to content creators themselves. It remains to be seen if this popularity can be sustained, something that can only be known two, three, or even 10 years into the future. “There’s a yearning for something different in the world of social media, but we don’t know what it will be yet,” Stuzin said.