Skip to main content

Tik Tok and Social Media platforms

   A few months ago, my brother was watching videos on an app on his phone and wanted to share them with me. He urged me to just download the app so it would be easier for me to watch the same videos he was. That app was Tik Tok. What has made Tik Tok so special is how easy it is to share videos with other people. However, I believe this makes Tik Tok seem more prevalent than it really is. It still has a long way to go before it will become the main platform for creators. The first problem is that it is nearly impossible to make money from creating content on Tik Tok. Most people who use the platform for business purposes take advantage of it as cheap advertising and attempt to direct viewers to other websites. With that in mind, Tik Tok is definitely a popular social media platform, but it's not optimized for users who wish to get paid for the content they create. 
   Twitter remains a popular social media platform for certain industries. In the video game industry, Twitter is still very dominant. However, I have seen other industries within Twitter falter. It’s currently still a valuable social media platform.
   Facebook would be completely irrelevant if it hadn't created Facebook Marketplace. The only thing I've used Facebook for in the last year is to look up small businesses' food menus online because they haven't created their own website.
   Snapchat and Instagram were both overrated to begin with. I expect them to remain at the bottom of the popular social media platforms. I personally believe these two platforms are mostly for people to flirt with each other. I've had over a hundred guys ask for my Instagram, but not a single female has asked if I have an account. Coincidence? I doubt it.
   The best social media formats today are the ones with video sharing capabilities. The rise in popularity of live streaming is proof of this. Platforms like Twitch and YouTube continue to grow in popularity. The downside of these platforms is the percentage of revenues the hosting website takes from the content creators.
   Finally, there is the overall problem of censorship, which threatens journalism. All of the big social media companies including Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook all censor to some extent the content users post. My personal favorite social media platform that appears to be less censored than most is Reddit. As technology like smartphones and the internet become more accessible to the average person, the more resources for historical events will be available. For example, the riots in Minneapolis were video documented by hundreds of people. Yet, most of those people won’t consider themselves to be journalists. The amount of video footage and documentation is too vast to be completely censored. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rise of Digital Games

I remember playing video games on the Nintendo 64. You would slam your favorite game cartridge into the system and turn it on. If the game didn’t immediately start all it took was a few breaths on the cartridge to remove the excess dust and start playing your game. I played many video games since then, but most consoles worked the same way. You put in the game and you are ready to play. That is not the case anymore. The first time I put a physical disc into a console and had to wait before I could play was Grand Theft Auto 5 on Xbox 360. It was a rare occasion, but one I accepted as a necessity as the game was huge compared to others of its time. Then the next generation of gaming consoles were released. The Xbox One and PS4 flooded the market and a new trend became the norm. People would buy digital versions of their games instead of purchasing a physical disc. Digital games were promoted with exclusive bonuses that weren’t available with the purchase of a physical copy of the same ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The COVID-19 Struggle

Being a full-time student during a global pandemic takes its toll. I was fortunate enough to be taking my classes at SUU as a full-time online student before the pandemic hit. That meant that my classes were not affected by the virus at all. Normally that would have been a good thing, but I watched as many professors were giving their students all kinds of breaks while the only break I got was a professor rounding a 89.9% up to an A-. I had to finish Spring finals week the same week that my grandmother, who raised me when I was younger, died. I was taking exams and writing research papers while my mother was crying because of her mom’s death. I was not able to visit my grandmother in the hospital because of the virus. I watched the funeral through an online stream. Then during the first week of Summer classes my grandfather died. I also had to watch his funeral through a live stream. The family deaths have definitely been the biggest impact of Covid-19 in my life. I’m stressed out ev...
Post a Comment
Read more