TikTok is an online app that showcases the videos and creative imaginings of its users.
Because a TikTok video can be only 15 seconds long for each clip, or 60 seconds for several clips strung together, short-form entertainment such as dancing is much more popular.
Is TikTok just videos and dancing?
TikTok is a video sharing site but isn’t just about dancing. Users record and post cooking shows, standup comedy, dancing, singing, costume creation, and other forms of entertainment for millions of viewers every single day to scroll past.
Does TikTok Contain Other Things Than Dance Videos?
TikTok is an app that hosts millions of viewers and content creators every single day!
If you were to only find dancing videos on the app, that would be incredibly surprising – impossible even!
TikTok has many different categories and a seemingly infinite number of sub-categories and topics for videos that it is nearly impossible to list them all.
Instead, here are some of the most popular or trending topics and video categories on the app today:
- Dancing or Choreography
- Singing or Rapping
- Pet Videos
- Comedy Skits or Jokes
- Cosplay or Costume Wearing
- Discussions on or References to Pop-Culture or Reality (anime, TV, movies, video games, D&D, politics, current events, celebrities, etc.)
- Rants or Update Videos (daily lives of users)
- Cooking and Lifestyle
- Nothing But Memes (you know who you are)
If dancing isn’t for you, consider giving any number of topics a try on the site!
Why Are Dancing Videos So Popular on TikTok?
TikTok has a huge amount of content to share.
Most of the popular content on TikTok is dance videos – short routines, both good and bad populate the site with new ones being recorded and shared every single day.
This is mostly because dancing doesn’t require a script, editing, or pre-planned jokes and skits. Dancing simply requires a video and an audio file in order to be posted. This means that one user could post several dancing videos to the TikTok app per DAY.
Getting Famous Dancing on TikTok
Now, this by no means indicates that dancing and posting yourself dancing on a public app is easy. Not everyone who posts dancing videos is guaranteed to become TikTok famous.
In fact, many videos of dancing on TikTok that are popular are either cyberspace. Whether that is connecting with others, posting records of yourself (photos, videos, status updates), showing off a talent, or looking for entertainment, TikTok does what is required of it when a user needs it.
Mostly, though, TikTok is an app built to be entertaining.
How is TikTok Different Than YouTube?
TikTok is different from YouTube in that its videos have a set time limit.
Like the Vine App of old, TikTok is required to maintain that time limit or risk a video having several more videos to complete them in parts. TikTok is limited to 15 seconds per video or 60 seconds for several small videos edited together into one.
This means that TikTok videos won’t end up being ten minutes or more, like most monetized YouTube videos are.
Because of this, TikTok content is designed and edited to be short-form entertainment, rather than long-form or video-essay length like YouTube can be.
This makes the jokes shorter and the payoff faster so users can scroll through hundreds of TikTok videos each day.
How Did TikTok Become so Popular?
TikTok is rumored to have boomed with iLOVEFRiDAY’s song, “Mia Khalifa,” which released in February of 2018.
This song would have been the catalyst to beginning the TikTok “sound” (or snippet of an audio file that is used overtop any user’s video provided that is able to be used freely on the site), which included a small portion of the song’s lyrics.
These are those lyrics:
- “Hit or miss, I guess they never miss, huh?/You got a boyfriend, I bet he doesn’t kiss yaaaa!”
These lyrics caught on in the internet community due to the origins of the song and the lyrics’ meaning (see reference link below for more information) and quickly became a massive meme.
Because a TikTok video – as we have mentioned – can only be about fifteen seconds long without editing more videos into one, this small portion of lyrics was used again and again and again with only that ONE small part of the song repeated millions of times.
These millions of users and their videos essentially became a meme everywhere else on the internet, causing people to ask the very important question: What is TikTok?
This sparked a boom in the use of the app and the creative imaginings of millions of users ever since.
What is Trending on TikTok Besides Dance Videos?
If dancing isn’t your thing, consider trying out these many topics and categories to excel in:
Comedy
Next to dancing, comedy is probably one of the highest forms of entertainment on the app itself.
Comedy on TikTok can come in so many different forms and encompass all other categories that someone can be interested in on the site.
For example, dancing, singing, wearing/making costumes, cooking, and even cat videos can all include some element of comedy to them. However, for this category, we will be looking more specifically at intentional comedy such as jokes, skits, references, and other setup-payoff videos.
There are a lot of TikTok users out there who specifically post their standup routines, tell quick jokes to their followers in fifteen seconds or less, or more complicated comedy routines that are scripted and edited with music and sound effects.
More often than not, a comedy routine or setup-payoff joke on TikTok is one person pretending to talk to another person, but the “other person” is just themselves in different clothes or with a hat on facing a different direction.
Some of them are quite brilliant and clever, while others are great to make fun of.
These comedy channels and videos are meant to entertain as well as to try and garner likes and followers – as all channels attempt to be the next big TikTok account.
Singing and Rapping
Along with dancing, singing on TikTok is both performative and can be funny.
There are many talented artists on the site who are trying to use TikTok as a platform in order to become famous, gain fans, or supporters to financially back them as they try to build a music career.
Other singers on TikTok use singing in their comedy routines or skits in order to not only show off their musical prowess but also to get a good laugh out of it.
There are even TikTok users that will show off raps or lyrics that they wrote themselves, and sometimes those lyrics can reference shows, movies, characters, or even politicians and current events.
Either way, there are so many musically talented people on the site it is mind-boggling!
Costumes or Characters
TikTok users love to dress up, put on makeup, and show off for the camera, but there are some users who take it even further than that.
Cosplay is a term that is used when someone dresses in costume to recreate a character. They will usually quote that character, as that character, and act with that character’s mannerisms.
With TikTok, dressing and acting like the character can include scripted skits with thought-bubbles or text-bubbles indicating what the character would say with voice-over audio supplying the majority of the skit or joke.
For example, if someone were to play an audio recording of two different people competing in an event and bickering about it, a TikTok user could dress up as both Sonic and Mario and pretend to have an argument with themselves.
This incorporates cosplay as well as comedy into their video and can be played for laughs as well as to show off the user’s costume abilities.
While many consider dressing up and pretending to argue with oneself a strange thing, TikTok users actually love to see how detailed and intricate someone can be when they make and wear a costume – especially if it can be used to make someone laugh!
References and Shoutouts
There are so many different topics in the world to talk about and millions of TikTok users to talk about them.
Games, shows, movies, celebrities, politicians, current events, musicians, and even authors are all up for chatting about in a fun and interesting skits on TikTok.
Some users will even just chat into their phone for sixty seconds about a certain event, movie, or any other reference that they can talk about.
These would be considered more traditional videos, as they don’t have much editing, audio files, voice-overs, or anything else that would be considered a creation for entertainment. Instead, users can go on the app and talk into their phone for one minute, sometimes having two or three videos on a single session of conversation.
This is a great way to talk about your life while still using the video format that the app requires.
Think of it like tweeting out your thoughts, but in video form.
Cooking and Lifestyle
One of the best things to do when you’re lying awake on a Saturday morning is to watch someone give you a one minute speed run on how to make the perfect omelet for breakfast.
Cooking and lifestyle videos on TikTok are great because they are entertaining, informative, and otherwise send a message of creating things both digitally and in real life.
Many famous TikTok chefs will post a new recipe every week and sometimes even daily! These recipes will include video footage edited together to show the entire process of the meal or dish being made in one minute or less.
There are other TikTok videos that focus on lifestyle and crafting, too, which can help people spice up their homes or cars with “life hacks” and “DIY projects” to do while they’re bored or have free time.
TikTok is full of fun and interesting content for all ages and backgrounds, especially those who love to watch someone make an entire turkey dinner in under one minute.
Animals or Pets
Since its inception, the internet has been known first and foremost as one of the best places to watch a cat video.
While that may be an over-exaggeration, pet videos online are some of the most popular and view-gobbling content creations out there!
You’ll never be able to scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even Tumblr without running into a picture or video of someone’s family pet. TikTok is no exception!
We all want to show off our adorable pets, whether for fun or for views, and they tend to brighten up everyone’s day!
References:
How TikTok Gets Rich While Paying Artists Pennies – Pitchfork