The Battle for “Clout,” TikTok Takes Over

Mallary Vasquez, Advertising Manager

In September 2018, the popular lip-syncing app “Musical.ly” was shut down and users were promptly migrated to a new app named “TikTok.” Since its making over a year ago, TikTok has become extremely popular, especially in the past few months. Recently, it seems like everyone and the mother has been using the app, and that’s not even an exaggeration. Students, parents, even teachers use the app globally. While it is more pushed towards teenagers, its user’s span from children all the way to the elderly. TikTok is gathering more users almost everyday and even changing everyday life.

In the past year of TikTok, trends have come and gone. About a year ago, the most popular sound used on the app was a song that most users knew as “hit or miss.” Now, barely anyone even thinks of the song. Recently, users have been using sound clips from popular musicals such as “Beetlejuice” and “Heathers.” Not only are these sounds trending, but dances and challenges are widely known and popular in the TikTok community. Some dances to songs circulate online and are easy enough to be memorized by casual users. Other users though take on challenges of performing harder dances online, like the dance to the “Spooky Scary Skeletons” remix by Andrew Gold, in honor of Halloween. Other users publish other kinds of content online, probably a very popular one being comedy, or portraying their lip-syncing skills. Users also like to portray their acting and singing skills for all to see. Other trends such as telling jokes or using certain sounds of telling funny stories or jokes are being uploaded often by the users. All types of content is uploaded to the popular video app daily by millions, most in the search of “clout.”

What is Clout? Clout is defined as influence or power in things like politics or business, but popularly, those who have TikTok clout have many followers and likes. Most users of the app tend to crave the popularity that can come on the app. Some people post on TikTok how much they want to blow up, and some people take it as far as to challenge others to a race for fame. Now that the school year is in full swing, there are plenty of users requesting that people follow their pages to be the most followed in their school. People have been accumulating over thousands of followers on the app since it’s establishment, getting the fame they crave. However, the real question is: who in Chester High School has the most TikTok clout?