Power pl l at t f orm
“We’ve ruled out the ‘sibling theory,’” snaps Abi Clarke (pictured above) at four other detectives (all played by her) during the morning briefing. Taped to the wall behind her is a pink piece of paper with “Does he like her?” all in capitals. It’s Line Of Duty… but the investigation centres on a friend’s love interest – and who the mysterious woman in his recent photos is. When I stumbled across it I actually laughed out loud; who isn’t a part-time detective when it comes to their friends’ crushes?
Abi’s skits – on everything from Love Island to The Sims – speak to me. And since joining TikTok last October, the 23-year-old comedian has reached a fanbase of 93,000 followers that she struggled to find on the traditional comedy circuit. “When you do stand-up, generally the crowd is male-dominated and in their forties or fifties, meaning I can’t perform the material I’d like to,” she says.
On TikTok, Abi can fill the “room” with an audience who will completely get her jokes, in part thanks to it showing her content to people who don’t follow her as soon as they open the app, via the For You page. Just a few weeks after her detective sketch went viral on TikTok (at the time of writing, it had over 750,000 views and more than 100,000 “likes”), Abi was approached by Amazon Prime. “With TikTok, everything happens so fast.”
The thing is, Abi posted that same sketch on Instagram, but it amassed just 4,600 views. So what is it about TikTok that accelerated her career? Mary Keane-Dawson, CEO of Takumi, which specialises in global influencer marketing, thinks it’s because success on the app is less dependent on your follower count, but rather your ability to create content people immediately want to engage with.“TikTok is a hotbed for experimentation,” she says. The relaxed nature of the app appeals too.“It offers creators the chance to show a different side to themselves.” One steeped in personality, rather than their traditional “trade” (such as beauty, fashion or fitness). The rawer and more authentic, the better, she says – audiences are rebelling against Insta-perfection and no longer want polished content 24/7. However, concerns that TikTok’s rustic charm will evaporate as it becomes more saturated are already rumbling. Right now, the #ads are minimal in comparison to its rivals, but as reality stars and the Hollywood elite join in, that’s already changing. Especially as professional management snap up stars like Holly, and she becomes less “carrot-eating goof” and more “lucrative global brand”. main platforms in different ways: on TikTok, she provides a side dish of comedy lip-syncs and voiceovers to accompany the main course of bold make-up looks. She now commands between £360 and £1,039 for a post (with TikTok at the higher end of the scale), depending on the brand and brief, and is a full-time creator.
Taj is also known for calling out those using the app inappropriately. “I like to tell the truth,” she says, explaining that she’s come across racist videos on the platform.“There are so many videos floating around of young, often white, people using the N word and other slurs.” Wanting to shine a light on these discrepancies, Taj regularly creates candid shorts, including one where she lip-syncs to an audio soundbite of “I don’t know if this is racist but it don’t feel right” with the caption “Telling all fat black girls they look like Lizzo”. She was trolled and praised in equal measure.
It seems that one of the things people like the most about TikTok – the freedom of speech and self-expression it offers – is also one of its biggest shortcomings. While nobody is denying that trolling exists on other platforms too, TikTok has been criticised for clamping down on the wrong videos. A report published by The Intercept found an internal policy document encouraging TikTok moderators to hide clips featuring people with “ugly facial looks” and “[who are] chubby, or too thin” from
praising her shiny hair and fangirling over her wardrobe. So as its popularity grows, could TikTok morph into something entirely different? Things are changing at such a pace that by the time this is published, it may have already done just that. Will I stop engaging with the platform? Probably. As soon as I’ve finished watching a random teenager balance a stack of toast on his head, of course.