Abstract

Communities are built and maintained on shared interest and proximity. the widespread adoption of social media, specifically TikTok, has allowed many communities to transition and thrive online. It has also allowed for bigger and better fandoms, more effective brand advertising and loyalty, and more creative collaboration. TikTok has created an environment that fosters communities through the features of the application, the language associated with the platform and the type of short form content that is expected by users. By utilising the platform people are able to find and be a part of a community much more easily than ever before.

Introduction

With the emergence of social media over the past few decades the world has suddenly become more interconnected and informed than ever before. Social media platforms with an incredible variety of features, specifically TikTok, allow for surprising changes in users communication with one another, companies and the real world. TikTok has vastly changed the way that people form communities with others, the way that brands interact with consumers and short form entertainment. The shift in communication can be seen in changes to user’s diction, friends, fandoms they are a part of as well as how communities are now formed and built. Legitimate companies also have transitioned to a more humorous and casual approach to their online presence especially on TikTok. With the features the platform offers, such as ‘duets’, ‘stitches’, and filters, there is no wonder that emerging content has been produced and interpreted differently than in the past. With coming generations being raised with access to these platforms there will be more moral panic that comes with almost every new technology with a degree of power, commonly the moral panic that regards social media platforms is “loss of community” (Hampton & Wellman, 2018), but I argue that there has been no loss of community but instead a shift or transition to online communities which are more inclusive of people finding their topics that interest them and building a community based on these topics with likeminded individuals

TikTok in real life

The changes in communication that have been caused by TikTok, and other platforms can be seen in everyday life, primarily through the most obvious form of communication, talking. It is not uncommon today to hear new words or phrases that have freshly been designed to portray a more contemporary feeling or behaviour. For example take the oxford dictionary word of the year 2024, “brain-rot” this is a word that originated on TikTok to describe how simply using TikTok made its viewers think and behave, the term describes the “ supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” (Oxford dictionary, 2024). TikTok is responsible for the trivial material which hooks viewers in for hours on end. The fact that a prestigious dictionary deemed this as word of the year is interesting, it shows that users use new slang produced specifically for TikTok because of TikTok in the real world. Slang is just the tip of the iceberg in regard to what aspects of TikTok have crept into everyday living.  Aspects of ‘fandom’ have been accelerated by the ability to gain extreme amounts of information from other fans through short video content, and more importantly the ability to communicate through application features to deeper dive into the world of that fandom. The chance to discuss users’ favourite creators and movies or anything with a fan base is more open than ever before, this leads to the real life feeling of connection meaning users will bring their online fandom experience into the real world because they feel encouraged to do so. There have been changes to what a community actually looks like because of the shift to the online sphere. The idea of ‘‘“networked individualism’’: the relational turn from bounded, densely knit local groups to multiple, partial, often far-flung social networks” (Rainie et al., 2012) is easily seen through many social media platforms but especially TikTok. Being a part of a fandom is an example of networked individualism, users can be parts of many different fan bases, which sees users turning away from the close-knit local groups to be provided more variety and personal expression online. So instead of being a part of small close communities that are founded around one unadaptable common interest people are choosing to be a part of many large but still niche groups to better explore their interests.

Advertising, public relations and politics

Social media has recently been adopted by brands and politicians to utilise the cheap but enormous reach these platforms can provide. Companies and brands mainly use TikTok as an advertising tool, even politicians have been seen using TikTok as a campaign tool, including the Australian Labor Party who “employed popular culture to frame political issues. For youth who may not be politically active, cultural references can serve as a shared symbolic resource” (Grantham, 2024) this quote helps to describe a common theme amongst brands and politicians alike, they piggyback off trends that are circulating at the time and use popular culture to appeal to the TikTok audience. Videos made by these sources to appeal to the masses are usually humorous in nature, even political parties gain viewers by not taking themselves too seriously. For example, the Labor party made a TikTok on the second of April this year (in lead up to the national election), saying “Australians when peter Dutton tries to justify spending $600 billion on a nuclear scheme” atop a video clip of a television show which is taken out of its original context and given another via the text on the video, purely to point out that Dutton’s policy is bad and hated by Australia. This is a new wave of political campaigning, the ability to connect to the future voting generation so easily with such a quick low effort video has never been seen before.

Brand humanisation and loyalty

Sometimes videos are barely related to promoting the politician or brand at all. There are many examples of brands using TikTok to simply get users thinking about their company, and ultimately relating to the company by realising it is down to earth and relatable. Many companies do this by making frequent comments on videos that are even remotely related to products they sell or their business inclusively. McDonalds is a good example of a company that portrays their relatability through the comments section. A trend has appeared on TikTok where users promise to do something in exchange for a large company or influencer to comment on their video, it is usually something along the lines of an alternative fast food company employee saying they will quit if McDonalds comments. When McDonalds does comment they are personified and praised for commenting on it. This action might seem small and insignificant but actually alters people’s perceptions of the brand. Other brands have different methods of utilising TikTok, Duolingo for example creates skits and comedy involving their giant green owl mascot, this draws people in making them recognise the TikTok account as separate to the app, but at the same time still a part of each other, this gives the brand creative freedom to get views whilst the vision of the mascot is enough to embed the idea of Duolingo into user’s minds creating relevancy.

Application features

TikTok’s addition of features such as duets, stitches and shared sounds on videos foster a new brand of creativity, community and interaction. The features allow for a more participatory environment than its predecessors Instagram and Facebook, which primarily rely on liking and commenting rather than any actual collaboration and involvement. TikTok is also unique in the fact that it prioritises video content rather than static images, with ‘sounds’ which are usually popular songs that anyone can use, this creates a new line of content with users either recreating dances, doing challenges or completely unique content with the same popular sound. “People use and repurpose sounds in combination with dance and other performative “challenges” that invite imitation and transformation in novel and creative ways” (Matamoros-Fernández, 2023) Sounds allow for collaboration at a level never seen before, it is reminiscent of “The Harlem shake” or “Mannequin challenge” which saw large groups of individuals either dancing or staying completely still respectively and then posting it to the internet. These challenges or crazes went extremely viral, now imagine a new challenge or dance craze every few days. This is what TikTok has made possible, features such as duets and stitches are unique to TikTok and allow for greater creativity. The Duet feature, for example, allows users to interact directly with another user’s video by creating side-by-side content, allowing users to change the context of the original video for humorous purposes, challenges, to agree with the original, to disagree with the original. The possibilities are unlimited, and these real time collaboration efforts help to foster greater online communities. Stitches work in similar ways, allowing users to take clips from other videos and splice them in with their original content, enabling a conversation of sorts to start. Other platforms like X also have reply features, however the downside to X’s reply is that it is limited to text options which limits the potential for creative responses.

Music and trends

The most important feature of TikTok is how integral the use of music and popular sounds is in creating content. Access to endless snippets and songs provide users opportunities to express themselves and more easily communicate emotions and humour. The sound playing over a video is vital in building the content into something that is deeper and allows for greater understanding and relation. Fans of Charli XCX, the popular musical artist, create sounds to be used throughout their niche community, these sounds can be remixes, old songs, popular songs, parodies or even completely new music to appeal to the same audience. For example, in 2024 a remix of one of her songs went viral because a fan remixed a snippet of Kamala Harris, who at the time was also very relevant, as the lyrics for the song. The new product was humorous and parodic but still appealed to the same audience that would consume the original song. Fan creations and exploration are fundamental in constructing and growing a community on TikTok and are a major reason why communities can be formed, sustained and explored on social media much more easily than in the real world.

Conclusion

The rise of social media has seen the creation of communities shift from in person to online, allowing for people to be more involved and active all the time. Overall TikTok’s culture, unique features, and marketing tools has made it one of the most important social media platforms to host online communities and fandoms available today. In terms of community no other platform has the potential to bring the scale of users that TikTok does together and facilitate their involvement and interaction with one another. Even brands and politicians have embraced the humour centred personal and widespread reach of the app to bring advertising and political campaigns to the audience. Application features such as duets stitches and comments are unique to TikTok and help to make the app a likely choice for businesses to go to for cheap but powerful marketing, and users to interact with any other user that creates something. The strong link that TikTok has to music really helps the app gain users as well as enables users to express themselves, communicate or just be entertained.

References

Grantham, S. (2024). The rise of TikTok elections: the Australian Labor Party’s use of TikTok in the 2022 federal election campaigning. Communication Research and Practice, 10(2), 181–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2024.2349451

Hampton, K. N., & Wellman, B. (2018). Lost and Saved . . . Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold of Social Media. Contemporary Sociology, 47(6), 643–651. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26585966

Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2023). Taking Humor Seriously on TikTok. Social Media + Society, 9(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157609

Oxford University Press. (2024). Oxford Word of the Year. In Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

Rainie, L., Wellman, B., Krolo, K., & Krolo, K. (2012). Networked: the new social operating system. Revija Za Sociologiju, 42(2), 213-217. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/networked-new-social-operating-system/docview/1350888284/se-2