Back to...

TIKTOK FOR DUMMIES TIKTOK FOR DUMMIES

• 00:43

Vertical video and anthropological research on the big screen: for the first time ever, goEast presents a programme culled from TikTok that gives the audience, who haven’t discovered this application yet, medial look at the subcultures of Eastern Europe. The medium is especially popular with young users – only Smartphone and the application are needed to get rolling as an amateur video producer. The trend is to create a new generation of authors who have assimilate the medium, processing pop culture references, clever hashtags and stitched-together dialogues in their videos. Migrants, queer communities, dissatisfied citizens or loners with extreme opinions and niche hobbies connect up on TikTok, where they find a platform to share with like-minded. Since the onset of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the medium has increasingly become a political tool as well: most recently, politicians have been briefing influencers about how should they report on the war. Tik Tok is a source of entertainment, but it is also a venue for simplification and disinformation. It is often unclear where the videos originate from, when they were recorded or which country they were created in. But young Ukrainians have also been using the application to report on their everyday lives or their efforts to flee the country. In Russia the platform was banned on 6 of March 2022, in connection with a new law that deals harshly with organizations accused of spreading fake news. Back to...