5 ms·

TikTok is a social network based on seeing people in portrait mode. There are entire subsets of it where music isn't the focus at all, and the fact that so many

by cmehdy 5y ago

TikTok is a social network based on seeing people in portrait mode. There are entire subsets of it where music isn't the focus at all, and the fact that so many people do exactly the same dance on exactly the same song should hint at the differentiation being the person shown. TikTok for the music industry is where the ads need to be because the youth is there, not because music is there. Youtube is closer to being "the" social media for music: concerts are published on it (sometimes live even), special events and channels like Cercle/Colors/etc, performances of artists self-published (covers included), music videos get posted there and being a "billion view" video is still a bit of a marker, "radios" appealing to very specific descriptions of all kinds exist with 24/7 activity, multi-million views channels aggregating new artists acting as discovery (Chillcow, Koalacontrol, and thousands more), etc. "Discovery" on youtube alone is pretty poor I'd say, but as mentioned in the tweets it's not really a viable product in itself anyway.

reggieband 5y ago
I think everyone's TicToc experience depends on how the algorithm sorts you. I know that if I open it up right now (which I won't since I should be working and the app tends to distort time and fast-forwards 2 hours of my life) I am almost certain to get a person with a guitar, banjo, piano, accordion or whatever in a 1-2 min snippet with them saying "I just wrote this little tune this morning ...". Alternatively, I almost never get any dancing at all, maybe 1 out of 100 videos. I also get a lot of music recommendations, like a "best 20 indie albums you've never heard of" compilation. On the subject of the songs not being a differentiator, I completely disagree. The songs themselves are memes. People use them to signify the type of video you are watching (or to attempt to subvert your expectation).
- rhino369 5y ago
  Man TicTok must think I'm a pervert since I get 50% of women dancing in bikinis.
  - djhn 5y ago
    As long as you keep telling TikTok that they're right in this assessment of your taste by watching the videos, as opposed to skipping them, that's exactly what you'll see. To be fair though, if you shared your gender with tiktok, it'll have a very strong prior about this.
SteveDR 5y ago
I disagree. I’ve personally been introduced to a lot of music through Tiktok. I think the fact that you can click on a sound (a “sound” is the song that gets played in the background of a video) and see the top posts from other people using that sound is interesting and unlike anything else. It lets users get a profile of the type of person who typically likes a given song. I also think that many people underestimate (or at least don’t talk about) how much of music is about cultural signaling. Tiktok serves this function well, especially for young people who want to appear ahead of the curve (god forbid someone accuses them of being “basic”), and so they want everyone to know that they’re listening to the next artist before everyone else. Also if it even needed to be said, popularity as a sound on tiktok directly translates to plays on streaming services. Songs with very little attention will suddenly blow up to millions of plays after going big on tiktok. This, to me, clearly suggests that tiktok is more valuable to artists than just being “ad space.”

by cmehdy 5y ago

reggieband 5y ago

I think everyone's TicToc experience depends on how the algorithm sorts you. I know that if I open it up right now (which I won't since I should be working and the app tends to distort time and fast-forwards 2 hours of my life) I am almost certain to get a person with a guitar, banjo, piano, accordion or whatever in a 1-2 min snippet with them saying "I just wrote this little tune this morning ...". Alternatively, I almost never get any dancing at all, maybe 1 out of 100 videos. I also get a lot of music recommendations, like a "best 20 indie albums you've never heard of" compilation. On the subject of the songs not being a differentiator, I completely disagree. The songs themselves are memes. People use them to signify the type of video you are watching (or to attempt to subvert your expectation).

rhino369 5y ago
Man TicTok must think I'm a pervert since I get 50% of women dancing in bikinis.
- djhn 5y ago
  As long as you keep telling TikTok that they're right in this assessment of your taste by watching the videos, as opposed to skipping them, that's exactly what you'll see. To be fair though, if you shared your gender with tiktok, it'll have a very strong prior about this.

SteveDR 5y ago

I disagree. I’ve personally been introduced to a lot of music through Tiktok. I think the fact that you can click on a sound (a “sound” is the song that gets played in the background of a video) and see the top posts from other people using that sound is interesting and unlike anything else. It lets users get a profile of the type of person who typically likes a given song. I also think that many people underestimate (or at least don’t talk about) how much of music is about cultural signaling. Tiktok serves this function well, especially for young people who want to appear ahead of the curve (god forbid someone accuses them of being “basic”), and so they want everyone to know that they’re listening to the next artist before everyone else. Also if it even needed to be said, popularity as a sound on tiktok directly translates to plays on streaming services. Songs with very little attention will suddenly blow up to millions of plays after going big on tiktok. This, to me, clearly suggests that tiktok is more valuable to artists than just being “ad space.”