TikTokTrends Week: 3
Week of August 3rd
I thought we would have a calm week or two in 2020, but I guess that’s just not going to happen. Welcome to Week 3 of my newsletter about TikTokTrends, there is a lot to talk about.
Trigger warning: Disturbing footage and photos of the Beirut blast ahead.
#Beirut
I doubt there’s anyone here that hasn’t heard about the, hard to comprehend, explosion that occurred in Beirut on Tuesday. The explosion killed at least 135 people and is said to have wounded 5000+ people. The exact cause of the explosion is yet to be determined. The New York Times reported that it was most likely due to a 2.75-ton stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored in the port of Beirut. The blast took place after a fire and a smaller explosion was heard coming from the same area. People nearby captured numerous videos of the incident. The New York Times has a great story analyzing the images, adding satellite footage, and showing the explosion from many angles.
The Context
Video footage of the explosion first began to spread on Twitter and Facebook. And what people captured to show the unbelievable damage.
There are so many videos of what happened in Beirut, I want to note a couple more of them here, which caught the explosion from three different angles. None of these videos were shot on TikTok, they were all shared across platforms.
Most of the videos are accompanied by #PrayforBeirut or #PrayForLebanon. Many creators can be seen adding links to their bio’s for people to donate and help Beirut and Lebanon.
The first two extra videos I wanted to share is from photographers at a wedding who caught the explosion as it hit, causing an intense amount of damage and fear. The video began to spread on Twitter and Facebook before it got to TikTok.
The third one is a video from a security camera inside a house. A father was trying to calm his son and take him to a safe place within the shaking home. The explosion was reported to be heard from 150 miles away in Cyprus.
Back to the images, I shared above. The image on the left shows the explosion from a very close angle. Showing the devastating shockwave as it hits the buildings around it.
The image in the middle shows the moments of the explosion from a delivery room, as a baby was being born. It shows the walls shaking and windows shattering on the doctors. It ends with the baby born and seemingly healthy.
The final recording was taken by a person on a jet ski. Like many of the other images, the person intended to capture the huge fire going on but ended up capturing the explosion at a very close distance.
These videos I chose do not show the full extent of the damage that Beirut has suffered. My thoughts go to everyone who lived through this tragedy.
#ConservativeHypeHouse
The Conservative Hype House account was created in February of 2020 made up of many individual content creators, who want to educate people on conservative ideologies on the platform. The name Conservative Hype House is a direct play on Hype House formed in December 2019 by a group of TikTok influencers who lived and shot videos in a house together.
The Context
This video is one of the most recent ones that got over 400,000+ views on the ConservativeHypeHouse channel. It talks about the new body cam footage that was leaked and claims to provide seven facts that are now known about the George Floyd killing.
Let’s do some fact-checking:
The claim: The video starts with explaining that there was a ‘legitimate’ reason for the detention of George Floyd, saying that he used counterfeit money.
In actuality: Although the presence of the counterfeit money is true, that was not the way it should have been handled by the police, which is not mentioned in the TikTok video. When the store owner was interviewed by CBS, he explained that “Most of the time when patrons give us counterfeit bills, they don’t know it’s fake, so there is no crime committed. When the police come, they just want to know where they got it from.”
The claim: Georg Floyd had Fentanyl and Methamphetamine in his system, while also being Covid-19 positive and having a severe heart disease.
In actuality: First of all, why is being Covid-19 positive put in the same category as drugs? Is it somehow illegal to have Covid-19 or heart disease? Secondly, the fact that George Floyd had drugs in his system was not the reason for the aggression caused by the police, it is an irrelevant fact that is used to stigmatize the use drugs that is seen as an affliction among white people but a crime among black people. These are not the important facts we should be focusing on in this tragedy. This is a way to divert what people think about a person by using irrelevant facts about the situation.
The claim: The newly leaked bodycam footage is shown, explaining that he forcefully resisted arrest until he was on the ground.
In actuality: The TikTok video does not explain why he was resisting. The bodycam footage shows the aggressors to be the police, coming up to the car George Floyd was sitting in, with a gun pointed at him. He is then asked to get out of the vehicle and is immediately handcuffed as he was asking the police not to shoot him. He is then taken to a police car where he states that he has anxiety and would not be able to breathe in the car, because of his fear of dying there. The two officers then continue to pull him from one side of the car and push from the other side to get him in the car. The TikTok video mentions none of these, only pointing out that George Floyd resisting might be partially true, but partial truth is the same as spreading lies in some cases.
The claim: Officers were accommodating, explaining that they would have lowered the windows for George Floyd.
In actuality: The TikTok video again takes a portion of the 8-minute leaked bodycam footage, to explain how ‘accommodating’ the police were, when in fact they began to shove George Floyd in the car 1 minute after being ‘accommodating’. The police were a lot of things, but accommodating is not one of them.
The claim: George pushed himself out of the car, on the floor.
In actuality: Right before falling on the ground, George Floyd yells in pain after being shoved in a vehicle he is afraid of being in. He yells that his wrists hurt. It can clearly be seen in the footage that he was pushed on his wrists while handcuffed from the back. He is then seen falling on the floor. Not exactly how the TikTok video explains it to be.
The claim: George claimed he could not breathe before being on the ground.
In actuality: George Floyd said that he can’t breathe when he was put in the car because of his fear of dying in the car and due to his claustrophobia, that he explains to the officers.
The claim: The autopsy report shows the heart attack George Floyd suffered was correlated to the pressure on his neck and the overall stress of the incident.
In actuality: The report is true as was reported by NewsWeek, the source that the TikTok video points to, yet there is a second autopsy conducted by the family of George Floyd, that points to death caused by asphyxiation from sustained pressure. This report is also mentioned in the same news article but was conveniently skipped by the TikTok creator.
The video ends by stating that the creator is NOT defending Derek Chauvin’s actions, adding that there is a high chance of the officers not being charged for premeditated murder because of the leaked footage, saying “It is important to know the full story and again, every Black life is valuable.”
The video does little to show the full story and leaves out key parts of the newly obtained information. Over 400,000 people have watched this video with over 85 thousand people liking it. The main issue with these types of videos is how convincing they can be. I will write more about this on my Medium page in the near future.
Here is the 8-minute leaked video of the body cam footage.
#TheWeekendExp
Gaining more than 1 billion views, mostly due to TikTok promoting it like crazy, this hashtag is about 3 live events hosted by TikTok with the artist The Weekend this past weekend. The exclusive events also feature the Equal Justice Initiative, aiming to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment at the national level, among other racial and economic justice goals.
The Context
The livestream on Friday evening attracted over 220,000 live viewers, who were eager to watch the new music video that The Weekend debuted during the animated livestream.
TikTok and The Weekend went beyond the ‘normal’ livestream that was expected and made it interactive. Viewers were asked ‘Yes or No’, ‘Right or Left’ questions, and were given prompts to be able to see their comments in the music video. The comments had a direct effect on how the music video played out. With the help of polls, users would decide what they wanted to see next, one of the prompts was “Lick the Frog?” where viewers overwhelmingly chose the Yes answer, obviously the right choice. The answers could be followed from the chat and it was also written on the animated crowd, seemingly cheering “YES!” The live stream went on for 26 minutes, debuting the new music video of the song Blinding Lights.
The song, Blinding Lights, was released on the 29th of November 2019, and a music video released on January 21st, 2020. The video has over 220 million views on YouTube. The song has also been used in 1 million separate videos on TikTok.
TikTok has been promoting this event for a long time, and many of the reactions show that it has been worth it. Many people exited the live stream commenting “Wow!” and “Amazing!”
This effort that TikTok has made into their live streaming service shows what direction TikTok is heading. TikTok is not mainly known for their livestreams, however, I do think that this could be a potential area where they add new features to.
We have to talk about the TikTokBan
This week, Trump ordered the ban of TikTok and WeChat in 45 days, unless it is sold by their Chinese parent companies. TikTok announced on Saturday that they plan to sue the Trump administration over the ban. The order comes after weeks of talk about a potential ban and talks with Microsoft and recently Twitter acquiring the application for billions of dollars.
The executive order states that “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property” will be subjected to the ban. This might mean a ban on just U.S. based advertisers, or it could also include downloads as was reported by The Guardian.
In the middle of all of this, Instagram appears to have a solution to it all. Instagram Reels. Literally TikTok on Instagram. On August 5, Instagram rolled out a new way to share and discover 15-second videos with audio, effects, and creative tools. Sound familiar?
You can see what videos others have done with the same audio. The clips are high paced and mainly revolve around dancing, lip-syncing, and various challenges. Basically TikTok. Even the way the Reels looks and is used is similar. It has the infinite scroll feature that TikTok has, so people can go down the rabbit hole just like on TikTok. It even looks just like TikTok. Check it out:
Since almost all TikTok users had an Instagram account, for them, the change could be seamless, the video challenges are still the same, the songs are, for the most part, the same, the creators are definitely the same.
This isn’t the first time Instagram took an idea from another company. Remember Snapchat? Well, they had the story function before Instagram did, users were able to create a series of images and videos that lasted 24 hours on the app. Instagram took that idea and is now one of its most popular features. Who knows, maybe Instagram will be the new TikTok?
In other news:
Last week I explained what the #RamseyReact was. You can find last week’s post here. He has now posted a lot more commentary on people cooking food. Here are a couple of the ones I enjoyed the most! Link 1, Link 2, Link 3.
Finally, for those who are interested in interesting and quirky videos, here is a creator called Macrofying. He uses macro photography and probably a microscope to go deep into everyday objects. He also adds a little visual effect at the end of each video. Definitely check out the channel!
That’s all I have for this week; hope you enjoyed my newsletter. Don’t forget to subscribe, share and please let me know if you would like to see something different, or if I missed anything this week on TikTok!
See you next week!