Smart phones have really topped up the social quotient of youngsters. And nowadays, TikTok is in trend, and as the name suggests, it is all about entertainment. TikTok is an application used for entertainment purposes; it gives broad platform to everyone who wants to express their feelings, talent or wants to spread some information. It’s a totally free application and leading social media platform for short videos. TikTok is a video-sharing social networking site owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. It is used for creating short videos where the users can dance, lip-sync to famous dialogues and songs; or create some comic, motivational or educational videos. Users can easily show their talent without any payment.

Basic information about TikTok

• Size: 308.3 MB (iOS); 55.21 MB (Android) 
• Operating system: iOS, Android
• Available in about 40 languages

As the audience and users are huge in number, that’s why TikTok has global offices including Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo. An amazing fact is that TikTok has 800 million active users worldwide. The age of around 41 percent of TikTok users ranges from 16 to 24. India accounts for about 467 million downloads, which is nearly one third of TikTok’s total downloads. TikTok users spend about 52 minutes on the app on an average. TikTok has 4.4 star rating on Play Store and India has the largest number of users on TikTok. Let’s have a look at some countries’ statistics.

• India- 119.3 Million
• USA – 39.6 Million
• Turkey – 28.4 Million
• Russia – 24.3 Million

How has it become popular among people?

India is the second most populated country in the world. It is also one of the countries which have the maximum segment of population as youth. So evidently, India has the biggest market for companies, there are a large number of daily customers who give billions to marketers. Similarly, TikTok has also gained popularity and business development because of Indian users. In India, there are 119 million users of TikTok who use this application on daily basis to perform their skills and get popular every day. People always like free modes of fun and entertainment.

Not just that, TikTok is easy to use and accessible to all and totally free for everyone, that’s why people loved this application. Millions of users put up creative videos of their comedy, talent, skills or lip-sync and post it on TikTok. People get likes, comments, followers and get popular by this platform. It is though another passive app where one comes looking for public validation and fame.  The interface of TikTok is such that you can see many people-next-door turn into “public figures” and “influencers”, who are now making their own songs and are earning fans and money!

There is a term ‘Popular Creator’ on TikTok, which is not given on the basis of followers but it’s given when the user follows the guidelines of TikTok and creates unique content. Someone with hundreds of thousands of followers can still be a Popular creator, and someone with over millions of followers may not be one.

People spend most of their time on TikTok for creating videos and to become popular. Some popular ‘TikTokers’, as they call themselves, are Mr. Faisu, Riyaz Ali, Awezdarbar, etc. No one knew them before TikTok, but now they have become people’s choice, beloved icons and people adore them too much. TikTok has even influenced everyone in Bollywood, and because of the short and funny videos on TikTok, there’s a section of people who don’t use YouTube as much now. If you follow these topics closely, you will know of the Tug of War between Youtubers and Tiktokers, and the debates that have happened.

Some people have made peace with the reality that TikTok is mainly for entertainment purpose only, while YouTube requires much more efforts and is used for several other uses like news, education, etc. But, TikTok is super easy to use, requires very less efforts and decent skills to gain popularity. That’s why; people loved this application. TikTok also gives attractive offers to its best users, which is also one of the reasons that it has become the favourite. Metro, malls, market areas, salons, people make and post videos. They are even taking risks to prepare unique content and hence, few people have also died because of TikTok while performing some acts to gain popularity.

Everyone loves getting attention and accolades. Smart phones, good internet connection, lots of idle hours are what motivate people to use TikTok. People also like to express their talent in front of large number of audience and TikTok provides an easy platform. For using TikTok, people don’t need to pay anything and on the basis of their talent, they can fulfill their dreams.

Many TikTok users, with their good performance, are now getting chance to meet their favorite celebrities and work with them. Not just as individuals, but people are also engaging and having a great time with their families and friends as they make videos together. But as you know, every coin has two sides and similarly TikTok has too. So it’s better to use it within time limit. It’s not good or value adding as such to spend loads of money to buy tripod, camera, phone and other gadgets merely to earn popularity on TikTok. Also, as we have seen, mostly there is age group of 16-24 which is mostly using TikTok rather than focusing on studies or making some actual worthy progress in life.