TikTok, whose mainland Chinese counterpart is Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed with a smart phone app.
Zhang Yiming is a Chinese internet entrepreneur. He founded ByteDance in 2012, developed the news aggregator Toutiao and the video sharing platform Douyin. In March 2024, Zhang's personal wealth was estimated at US$41.2 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the second-richest person in China, after Zhong Shanshan. On November 4, 2021, Zhang stepped down as CEO of ByteDance, completing a leadership handover announced in May 2021. According to Reuters, Zhang maintains over 50 percent of ByteDance's voting rights.
Charli Grace D'Amelio is an American social media personality. She was a competitive dancer for over a decade before starting her social media career in 2019, when she began posting dance videos on the video-sharing platform TikTok. She quickly amassed a large following and subsequently became the most-followed creator on the platform in March 2020 until she was surpassed by Khaby Lame in June 2022. With over 155 million followers, she is the second most-followed person on TikTok, as of 2024.
Addison Rae Easterling is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Rae rose to fame on TikTok and has amassed over 88 million followers, making her the fifth most-followed individual on the platform.
Many countries have imposed past or ongoing restrictions on the video sharing social network TikTok. Bans from government devices usually stem from national security concerns over potential access of data by the Chinese government. Other bans have cited children's well-being and offensive content such as pornography.
The fashions of the 2020s represent a departure from 2010s fashion and feature a nostalgia for older aesthetics. They have been largely inspired by styles of the late 1990s to mid-2000s, 1980s, and late 1960s to early 1970s. Early in the decade, several publications noted the shortened trend and nostalgia cycle in 2020s fashion. Fashion was also shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a major impact on the fashion industry, and led to shifting retail and consumer trends.
There are reports of TikTok censoring political content related to China and other countries as well as content from minority creators. TikTok says that its initial content moderation policies, many of which are no longer applicable, were aimed at reducing divisiveness and were not politically motivated.
Haley Cavinder is an American social media personality and college basketball player for the Miami Hurricanes of the Atlantic Coast Conference. She previously played for the Fresno State Bulldogs after beginning her career with Miami. Cavinder was an All-Mountain West Conference (MW) selection in each of her three seasons at Fresno State, and was named MW Player of the Year in her sophomore season. As a junior, she set the NCAA Division I single-season free throw percentage record before transferring to Miami.
Shina Novalinga is an Inuk social media personality, singer, and activist. She gained fame for posting videos throat singing with her mother on TikTok and Instagram, who has been a professional throat singer for many years. Her love of throat singing came from her mother and wanted to express her culture to those unfamiliar with it, which is how she started to create videos on social media. As of April, 2024 she has over 4 million TikTok followers and 2 million Instagram followers.
BookTok is a subcommunity on the app TikTok that focuses on books and literature. Creators make videos reviewing, discussing, and joking about the books they read. These books range in genre, but many creators tend to focus on young adult fiction, young adult fantasy, and romance. The community is cited with impacting the publishing industry and book sales. The creators in this community are also known as BookTokers.
Jimmy Kellogg is an American social media personality known professionally as Jimmy Darts. He posts random acts of kindness videos, often via TikTok and YouTube.
Tori Dunlap is an American businesswoman. She is the founder of 'Her First $100K', which is a financial education company aimed at young women.
Libs of TikTok is a handle for various far-right and anti-LGBT social-media accounts operated by Chaya Raichik, a former real estate agent. Raichik uses the accounts to repost content created by left-wing and LGBT people on TikTok, and on other social-media platforms, often with hostile, mocking, or derogatory commentary. The accounts promote hate speech and transphobia, and spread false claims, especially relating to medical care of transgender children. The Twitter account, also known by the handle @LibsofTikTok, has nearly 3 million followers as of February 2024 and has become influential among American conservatives and the political right. Libs of TikTok's social-media accounts have received several temporary suspensions and a permanent suspension from TikTok.
Carla Rockmore is a Canadian-American fashion stylist and jewelry designer based in Dallas, Texas. She is known for her fashion-related TikTok videos.
Kala is an American TikToker known for her content surrounding the excavation of a tunnel under her house, which has earned her the nickname "Tunnel Girl".
Sara Camposarcone, also known as Sara Campz, is a Canadian stylist, designer, and social media influencer known for her embrace of outlandish, maximalist fashion.
Nara Aziza Smith is a South African-born German fashion model and social media personality based in the United States. Smith is well-known on her social media accounts for cooking mini-vlogs, in which she prepares meals almost entirely from scratch in extravagant clothing and narrates them in soft-spoken voiceovers. The meals are often inspired by her toddlers' and husband's requests.
Madeline Felicity Argy is an English influencer. She created her TikTok account in 2021 and became known online for her candid storytimes. A video of her talking about a worm inside of her sister's leg went viral in 2022; she was soon signed to United Talent Agency. In 2023, she began hosting the podcast Pretty Lonesome with Madeline Argy through Alex Cooper's Unwell Network. Her on-again, off-again relationship with rapper Central Cee, which began in 2022, has also received media attention.
Who TF Did I Marry? is a series of 50 TikTok videos posted by user Tareasa Johnson, known online as Reesa Teesa, in February 2024. In them, she chronicles her relationship and marriage to Jerome McCoy, a man who she calls "Legion" and who she describes as a pathological liar that, unbeknownst to her, falsified the majority of details about his life. The series quickly went viral online, earning praise from social media users and critics for Johnson's storytelling skills and prompting a response from McCoy. It is scheduled to be made into a television series, starring and executive produced by Natasha Rothwell.
