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Dressed in a violet satin gown, with diamanté earrings that reach her collarbone, the mathematician and drag queen OnlineKyne (@onlinekyne) works to fill the sizeable gaps in our maths knowledge. Safe to say, Year 11 Algebra class this ain’t.
Kyne’s brand of charm and comedy has helped her reach an audience of more than a million followers on TikTok, no mean feat considering that much of her page consists of chat about tetrahedrons and trapezoids – but that’s the power of charisma and enthusiasm.
Another joyful TikToker (and the most popular in Europe, with more than 120 million followers) is Khaby (@khaby.lame), who posts long-suffering reaction videos to increasingly complicated and absurd life hacks. Born in Senegal and raised in Italy, his beautifully simple mime routines ask for respite from the contagion of “perfect” lifestyle bloggers via a cure of common sense, all without saying a word.
You keep scrolling. In the space of four minutes you might see para-athlete Milly Pickles (@millypickles1) sharing her new running blade; or Jing (@_itsjing) lip-syncing jokes about beauty standards in America and Asia; or skin king Hyram (@skincarebyhyram) arguing that CeraVe is the cure to all human ills; or “CEO of chai” Kevin Wilson (@crossculturechristian) reviewing different spice blends with his trademark sip, sigh and a smile.
Why we’re looking for difference
Creatives have always aimed to tell us something about who we are and the times we are living in. TikTok’s pursuit of short bursts of joy is a welcome shift that goes beyond something that has defined social media for a while: “relatability”. For some time what got attention was a cast of predominantly white replicas. In marketing agencies across the country, relatability was held up as a golden ticket, as we watched these “relatable” teens give a generation what we all thought we wanted – people just like us.
Years later, we’ve learnt that difference is crucial. It is not only better bandwidths, camera angle knowledge, ring lights and access to information that has made us look beyond relatability as a concept. We still identify with universal human experiences, of course – that’s how we’re designed – but in a globally connected world, we just want to see real lives happen.
For every video you watch about the banality of British airport queues, you might also come across fascinating insights from queer Latinx girls cooking recipes that you have trouble keeping up with, to divers in the Olympic village sharing how they’ve broken Japanese beds. When our collective emotional capacity is low, we look for people who show up as nothing but themselves.
A release from the real world
We live in a moment where we are asked frequently: What does it mean to be you? For some, the answer can mean fear, via online attacks, trolling, wading through the toxic soup of the most poisonous corners of the internet. And, in response, bedrooms, streets, parks, swimming pools, classrooms and cars across the planet are being claimed as sites of joy, as 4.2mm camera lenses capture us stumbling around to Megan Thee Stallion.
On high streets across the country there are schoolkids practising Amapiano dances in the street learnt from South African TikTok, and boys doing wheelies to share with the hashtag #bikelife. During lockdown, thousands of people watched Elsa Majimbo (@elsa.majimbo) happily eat crisps and declare that, “It’s a pandemic!” with a glorious shriek, relieved at an excuse to cancel on friends.
So what can you share, how can you enrich people’s lives, and how can you do that authentically and diversely? That’s what brands should be asking themselves as they join the joyful chorus of voices and communities that is TikTok.
