What Is TikTok? How a Short-Form Video App Took Over the Internet?风靡全网的抖音究竟是何方神圣？

卡尔汉·罗森布拉特

The app， owned by a private company based in China， has gained a sizable user base—and its videos are suddenly all over the internet.抖音是中國私有公司推出的产品，拥有庞大的用户群体。抖音视频突然间在网上无处不见。

On TikTok， the app that is suddenly everywhere on the internet， a certain genre of videos all start the same way： a first-person view of an arm reaching into a refrigerator while the intro to the Village People1 song “YMCA”2 plays.

The person behind the camera pulls out some food—an egg or a piece of cheese or even a tortilla—walks it into another room， and， as the song’s horn section kicks in3， the food is whipped into the face of another person.

The video abruptly ends before showing the reaction of the person， sometimes literally with egg on their face.

The sneak attacks4 are just one of the many different jokes， pranks， memes and trends that trace their origin back to TikTok. And while the app has become wildly popular in its own right， videos created on its platform are making their way onto other platforms and across the internet.

A YouTube search turns up an almost inexhaustible list of TikTok compilations， and TikTok videos are routinely uploaded to Twitter， where they can amass5 millions of views.

TikTok， which launched in China as “Douyin” in September 2016， describes itself as a forum to “capture and present the world’s creativity， knowledge， and precious life moments， directly from the mobile phone.” It is owned by Bytedance， a startup based in China that is considered one of the world’s most valuable private companies.

TikTok users tap and hold to record a short video and can add music and visual effects. The videos can then be uploaded with hashtags to join a variety of topics and trends. Its functionality—and the creativity it has fostered—echoes the six-second video-sharing app Vine， which shut down in 2017.

Most of the videos， which tend to last around 15 seconds， show someone dancing， lip-syncing to a song or video clip， or pulling some kind of running gag6， but the app has also gained followings among some particular groups， most notably military personnel.

Adam Blacker， vice president of mobile research and communications at the mobile analytics firm Apptopia， said TikTok has grown fast， noting that it added 30 million users in one three-month stretch of 2018.

“People talk about the numbers with TikTok because they’re impressive， but what’s more interesting is its growth comes at a time when stalwart American social media apps have stagnated7 user growth，” Blacker wrote in an email. “Not only that， but TikTok is an app created in China that is having success in the United States. Outside of games， this is essentially unheard of.”

Blacker said Apptopia estimates TikTok had 251.2 million monthly active users as of December， which counts people across three apps： the U.S. version， a version popular in Asia， and a separate app only available in China.

The app’s users skew8 young， with Apptopia finding that people 11 to 20 make up its biggest contingent9， at 35 percent of all users， with 21- to 30-year-olds the next biggest， at 23 percent.

TikTok declined to comment on user data.

The U.S. version of TikTok was formerly known as Musical.ly before ByteDance acquired it in 2017 and rebranded it. The company has also worked to attract users in international markets， launching “lite” versions of its app in India and Indonesia， where wireless internet access isn’t as ubiquitous10.

Other companies have taken notice of TikTok’s success. In November， Facebook launched a nearly identical app called Lasso.

Part of the charm and attraction of TikTok is that its younger users have embraced it as a place to experiment with the kind of internet humor that hasn’t thrived on other platforms.

“In a world where everyone’s content inevitably begins to look the same， TikTok videos feel bizarre and new，” wrote The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz. “It’s an app full of people posting strange content to the internet with zero self-awareness or shame.”

Others have noted that the app offers a respite11 from other platforms that have become associated with abuse and hate speech. Kevin Roose in The New York Times called the app “a refreshing outlier in the social media universe” that brought him the rare sensation of “happiness.”

忽然之間，抖音已经风靡全网。在该应用上流行着这样一类视频，开头都如出一辙：伴随着乡下人乐队的《基督教青年会》歌曲前奏，镜头内只见一只手伸进了冰箱。

镜头后面的人拿出一枚鸡蛋或一块奶酪，甚至一块墨西哥薄馅饼等食物，然后走入另一个房间，当歌曲的圆号部分响起时，猛地将食物甩到另一个人的脸上。

还没来得及看清对方的反应，有时就是鸡蛋糊在某人脸上，视频便戛然而止。

这样的偷袭只是抖音上形形色色的笑话、恶作剧、模仿和流行梗之一。抖音凭借自身特色迅速走红，而该平台创造的视频则流传到其他平台，继而风靡全网。

在“油管”上搜索一下，便能找到无数个抖音专辑。抖音视频也会经常上传到推特，并能累计数百万的浏览量。

抖音是该应用的中文名，于2016年9月上线。该应用将自己描述成一个“用手机捕捉呈现世界创意、知识、美好生活瞬间”的平台。抖音的所有者为中国创业公司字节跳动，被认为是全球最具价值的私有企业之一。

抖音用户只需点击按住中间按钮即可录制短视频，视频还能添加音乐和视觉特效，之后还可以打上标签链接到各式各样的流行话题里。抖音的功能及其催生的创意与6秒视频分享软件“藤”（Vine）如出一辙，该应用已于2017年关闭。

大多数抖音视频的时长为15秒左右，内容要么是跳舞、给歌曲或视频片段对口型，要么是抖出某种笑料，然而该软件也得到了特定群体特别是军人的关注。

移动分析公司应用乌托邦（Apptopia）的移动研究通信副总裁亚当·布莱克表示，抖音发展很快，在2018年仅3个月时间里便新增了3000万用户。

布莱克还在邮件中写道：“人们对抖音出色的数据津津乐道，但更有意思的是，抖音的发展恰恰发生在美国社交媒体巨头们用户增长停滞的时期。不仅如此，抖音作为一款中国开发的应用在美国也大获成功。除游戏以外，这几乎是前所未闻的。”

布莱克称，应用乌托邦估计自12月开始，抖音的月活跃用户为2.512亿，该数据包括美国版本、亚洲流行版本和中国独立版本的用户数。

该应用的用户群偏年轻，据应用乌托邦统计，11—20岁是它的最大用户群体，占总用户的35%，21—30岁为次核心群体，占比23%。

抖音对其用户数据不予置评。

抖音美国版的前身为悦音（Musical.ly），2017年字节跳动公司将其收购并重组品牌。该公司还大力吸引国际市场用户，在印度与印度尼西亚推出了“轻”版抖音，因为无线网络在两国还不够普及。

抖音的成功也引起了其他公司的注意。11月，脸书推出了一款名为“拉索”（Lasso）的应用，其功能几乎与抖音一模一样。

抖音的部分魅力在于年轻用户把它当成一个实验场所，可以尝试其他平台尚未流行的网络幽默。

《大西洋月刊》的泰勒·洛伦茨写道：“在个人生活渐趋雷同的世界里，抖音的视频带来了新奇感。充斥其中的用户可以将奇奇怪怪的内容发布到网络上，而不觉得难堪或羞耻。”

还有人注意到该应用可以让人们短暂地摆脱其他平台的言语暴力、仇恨言论。《纽约时报》的凯文·鲁斯称抖音为“社交媒体世界的一股清流”，给他带来了少有的“幸福”感。