TENTS SITUATION Ignoring TikTok, and its growing cultural influence, won’t just make it go away.
Illustration: Ben KonkolYES
TikTok, a skyrocketing app favored by Gen Z and designed to showcase short-form mobile videos, has amassed 80 million active users in the U.S. Still, many in the 30-and-over crowd say they simply don’t have the time or will for more social media. “That’s stress I don’t need in my life,” said writer Louis Peitzman, 33, who has more than 68,000 Twitter followers. “Instagram is soul-sucking enough.”
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Especially viral TikToks—like pranks, dance challenges and messy science experiments—migrate to other social platforms anyway. And earlier this month, Instagram debuted Reels, a feature that lets you layer sounds and other TikTok-like effects onto 15-second video snippets.
“ ‘Anyone over 30 dancing like a teenager looks stupid... Do the world a favor and leave TikTok to the kids.’ ”
Emily Schuman, 37, the lifestyle blogger behind Cupcakes and Cashmere, chose not to move her content to TikTok, sticking with her half-million Instagram followers. “TikTok feels ageist,” she said, adding that a meme sealed the deal for her. “It read, ‘If you’re old enough to use eye cream, you’re too old for TikTok.’”
Many Boomers cite privacy concerns as reason to shun the app, which was developed in China and can access personal data—though no more than other social platforms. Others see downloading TikTok as a desperate attempt to reclaim one’s youth. “Anyone over 30 dancing like a teenager looks stupid,” said entrepreneur Hannah Lockhart, 35. “Do the world a favor and leave TikTok to the kids.”
The kids tend to agree. This spring, Maya Lepadatu, 17—the force behind a TikTok mocking millennials who use words like “adulting” and love avocado toast—saw it go viral. In the clip, she joked, “I personally do not want to be associated with people who still think Harry Potter movies are a personality trait.” Millennials later lobbied a defense—on Twitter.
NO
With its simple interface and algorithm that tailors content to each user’s tastes, TikTok has become a crucial time-killer for Americans stuck at home. And, lately, the app is particularly attracting older generations, who grew up posting selfies but weren’t initially ready for the pivot to video. According to Comscore, this spring TikTok saw a steep increase among 35- to 44-year-olds, while use among 18- to 24-year-olds dropped. And today the #Over30 hashtag has more than 7 billion views.
“TikTok aged up fast thanks to quarantine,” said Evan Horowitz, 39, CEO of creative studio Movers+Shakers, which spearheaded the most viral U.S. campaign in TikTok’s history for e.l.f. Cosmetics last year. “What’s also helped is that it’s trendy to make a TikTok with your parents or grandparents, so that has brought them into the TikTok world at a faster rate.”
“ TikTok fans see the app as an alternative to Instagram’s polished aesthetic, Twitter’s snark and Facebook’s overly mass sensibility. ”
Dentist Tim McNeely, 47, initially joined the app on a dare before rising to fame as the “Dancing Dentist.” He now boasts 1.9 million followers and said his practice has grown due to TikTok. “In the beginning, there were comments like, ‘We stan,’ which scared me,” he said “I deleted the videos until my daughter informed me that ‘stan’ is a compliment.”
TikTok fans see the app as an alternative to Instagram’s polished aesthetic, Twitter’s snark and Facebook’s overly mass sensibility. They describe the platform as raw and authentic with something for users of all ages, from recipes and fitness programs to makeup tips and even therapy.
“Being a millennial on the app felt strange at first because I landed just before the COVID boom,” said TikTok star creator Brian Moller, 32. “But now it just feels like we’re all there doing weird stuff together.”
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