You Won’t Want to “Hit or Miss” this New Trend!
Jake Montgomery is pictured above in one of his viral videos on TikTok. Montgomery gained roughly 2,000 followers on TikTok. “In my free time I Iike to make videos because I enjoy making people laugh,” said Montgomery.
It’s 7:30p.m., and an ad for TikTok pops up on your phone. Usually you’d skip over the ad, but you become intrigued. You click on the ad, and download TikTok onto your phone, then realize that you’ve seen people go onto the app before.
TikTok is a popular social media app for sharing short videos. The length of the videos are typically 15 to 60 seconds. Before it was named TikTok, its original name was Musical.ly. Musical.ly was created in April 2014 by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang in Shanghai, China but later purchased by ByteDances and changed to TikTok in 2017. Along with Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter, TikTok is a very addictive and entertaining app. On average, teens spend more than 52 minutes per day on TikTok.
Like all social media apps, TikTok has some pros and cons. On the positive side, it lets you share your content online and express your creativity.
“I use TikTok mainly as a creative outlet that lets me express my ideas to a wide audience. I believe it has both positive and negative effects. While it allows students to create their own content and have fun, it can also make them feel worse about themselves if they don’t go viral or get on the “For You” page,” junior Jake Montgomery said.
The “For You” page is basically like the exploration page on Instagram. It’s a way for people to see other people’s videos, or videos that have the chance of becoming popular. Montgomery recently had a video that got over 855k views and 101.6k likes.
Many students at Pottsville Area High School make videos on the app, or just watch other people’s TikToks simply for the fun of it.
“I mostly use TikTok to see what is trending, and to have a good laugh here and there,” sophomore Taylor Lazarchick said.
If someone who creates TikTok videos and doesn’t become viral or get on the “For you” page, they may get very upset.
“I love just making TikToks and being stupid. Sure, I may get upset when I don’t get on the “For You” page, but it doesn’t bother me to the point where I stop making them. I doubt that will ever happen because the grind never stops,” said junior Emma Smith.
Pottsville’s Publications staff has a TikTok account, and its username is @pahs_publications. Jake Montgomery’s username is @jakemonty, and he would be appreciative if you liked some of his videos.