PAOLO KERNAHAN
IT'S TICK-TOCK for TikTok. Time could be running out for the immensely popular social media platform in the US.
What? Who doesn't love an insufferable pun?
In a rare show of bipartisan co-operation, the US government appears bent on a sweeping ban of the app.
The blistering momentum gathered behind this nuclear option seems to completely sidestep the fact that a ban on TikTok will potentially devastate countless small and medium-sized businesses in the US. The app has become an important incubator for entrepreneurs. It's the sixth most used social media platform worldwide and has an estimated one billion users per month - a figure that's only growing. Consumer spending on the app doubled in the space of one year to $2.3 billion in 2021.
Anyone who still believes the video-centric app is for dancing teens and cake recipes exclusively either never used TikTok or doesn't understand it - or both.
TikTok, not unlike other social media platforms, created opportunities for people whose lives were reduced to fallout during pandemic lockdowns. What set this platform apart from the others, though, is that it allowed users faster growth and broader reach with their content. While that speed and reach may have since diminished somewhat, it's still better than what obtains on other socials, some of which have gone the pay-to-play route.
TikTok has also become a great leveller. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker - the video-driven site has given a platform to people with talents of almost every conceivable variety to earn a reasonably consistent income.
In particular, creative types like filmmakers, artists, musicians and authors have built viable careers on TikTok using their gifts. Such artistically inclined folks would otherwise have been relegated to either poorly paid work by industry gatekeepers or offered the ignominious "exposure" in exchange for their efforts.
As a former nature and television documentary producer, I wonder what my horizons would have looked like if TikTok was around 12 years ago.
When I decided to follow my dream of producing television shows back in the day, getting them financed was like pulling out my liver. I had to go cap in hand to corporate sponsors who knew nothing about television. Moreover, they weren't particularly interested in it and perceived the shows as "spots" - mere vehicles through which they could shift their products or services.
These gatekeeping succubi stood between myself and the audience, among whom demand for the programming was always buoyant.
TikTok, in no small measure, has flipped that dynamic on its head for creatives today. They put their content online, amass huge audiences, and can monetise their talents and abilities in different ways. They can market directly to clients, teach others how to do what they do through online courses and eBooks, attract paid speaking gigs and do merchandising.
Moreover, corporate players who once called the shots must now go to these creatives to bargain for a piece o
