Sandra never thought of having a career on TikTok. Like many other young people in Generation Z, those who sometimes appear to be born with a phone in hand, opened accounts on Chinese ‘apps’ in the difficult times of the pandemic. “I wanted a way out and a tool to educate people about what I know, which is law and labor relations,” the 23-year-old creator recalled in a conversation with ABC. One day, out of the blue, a machine algorithm worked its magic and made one of his videos, specifically one in which he talks about racism against black people in Spain, go viral. That’s when thousands of ‘likes’ and hundreds of thousands of followers arrive.
To this day, by his account, so called Salix catWith around a million ‘followers’, the Chinese ‘app’ has become the tool Sandra uses to pay for her expenses and savings. «If they took him from me, it would be like losing my job and being thrown out into the street. I will lose my community, I will feel as if they are censoring me,” he said. And this is something that is likely to happen in the United States very soon.
After a failed attempt by Donald Trump in 2020, the current president of the North American country, Joe Biden, has issued an ultimatum to TikTok’s Chinese investors (20% of its shareholders) forcing them to sell their stake in the app in order to continue operating in the United States. The reason: fear that the platform will transfer data from American users to the Chinese government. Once the US, EU, Canada or UK forces the removal of the ‘app’ from government tools, the future of the site in the West is more uncertain than ever. And neither the content creators who make their living from videos and trends, nor the representative companies, who handle their affairs, are aware of this reality.
great fishing spot
The number of Spanish digital ‘influencers’ continues to grow. according to a Study from a representative body 2btubeIn 2022, the number of professional national creators, who have more than 100,000 followers, grew to 9,100, 23% more than in 2021. And a significant part of the blame lies with TikTok. “It has introduced us to so many talents that would not have known were it not for this app. At the end of the day, in this business you are always looking for new faces”, Blanca Rabena, director of services at 2btube, explains to this newspaper. And that is ability to go viral tools make it easier to stand out on Chinese ‘apps’ than on competitor sites.
Sunrise, 22, entered TikTok a year ago “without big ambitions.” While he doesn’t have many followers, only 133,000, he doesn’t have a single video across all of his accounts that has less than 10,000 views. Many of them left above 100,000 or even a million. All thanks to a disease that causes his body to be full of moles.
“Algorithms viralize everything that is different,” says the creator. Despite his success on ‘app’ videos, and he admits that he would “really regret it if he lost all the work” he had invested in and the story behind it, the loss of the platform would not be the end. the story is also the world: «If they delete TikTok, you go to another social network. You go to Instagram or YouTube and that’s it».
Despite the fact that the creator lives completely off the social network, he makes his work as a creator compatible with corporate accounts, he admits that, ultimately, TikTok is not a tool with which he generates a lot of income, most of it is from it. , in his case, They come from Instagram, a site that is easier to make money thanks to, among other things, the possibility of including a link in the story that leads to the store of the brand that hired you. He also pointed out that the platform owned by Meta is better at creating community. «On TikTok I have followers who don’t even realize what’s happening to me and ask me about the scars. There are no people on Instagram, because those who follow me know it well, “says the creator.
reinvent or die
estel26-year-old creators who have a million followers on TikTok, like Alba, demonstrate that living exclusively from Chinese ‘apps’ is very difficult. Or you alternate and dedicate time to it, or you have very few possibilities. “One of the biggest lies on social media is that TikTok makes you a lot of money. If you don’t have a ‘sponsor’ and multiple brands to support you, it’s not like that. The social network itself gives you nothing”, said the young woman. Likewise, he explained that if TikTok is banned in the morning “it won’t make my career boom either”: “You have to be firm and go for the chestnuts. If people finally want to follow your content, they will do the same on TikTok, on Instagram, or on Twitch.
Indeed, many representative agencies have studied the scenario that, when the time comes, the use of TikTok will be restricted in the West. «If it closed, it would be a loss, but it would not be the end of the world», points out Rabena, pointing out that, on a commercial level, the companies that will suffer the worst are those seeking to direct products to a younger audience, a sector in which TikTok has become a huge strength for some. time. Meanwhile, Marisa Oliver, director of the agency hamelin, highlighting in a conversation with ABC about the foreseeable loss of talent: «Clearly it’s time to reinvent itself and look for alternatives. There may be significant professional decline.”
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