The app, TikTok has had its ups and downs throughout its four years of being released. TikTok is a social media app that allows its users to share short videos (up to a minute long) with their followers. Most creators will post videos that pertain to their personality, from viral dances to cosplays. In fact, there happen to be numerous different groups of people on TikTok.

TikTok was released back in September of 2016 and quickly passed the ratings of users for most of the other common and popular social media apps. TikTok took over what was once known as Musical.ly, a social media platform that allowed its users to film short lip-syncing videos and share them with their followers. From its inception, TikTok has been a platform that allowed its users to do the same, but with added benefits. Not only did it have songs to perform to, but allowed its users to put special effects onto their videos, or even create their own original sound.

TikTok, although an interesting app, had its fair share of challenges. As with any other social media accounts, the fear of speaking to strangers on the internet stood, and although TikTok allows its users to make their account and videos private it still didn’t fully prohibit the risks of talking to some creepy person in private messaging. Societal issues almost lead to TikTok getting banned in the U.S, quite a few times because of a dispute between President Donald Trump and the Chinese company ByteDance.

When created, TikTok produced many videos featuring lip syncs, cosplays, pranks, and custom dances. Some well-known songs include Hit or Miss, and I’m Tracer. Now, TikTok serves the same function, but it happens to bring more toxicity. There are ‘wars’ between TikTok creators, creators that try to force their views onto other people, and just a lot of hate in general. It seems as if everyone has turned against each other, and has completely forgotten why they joined TikTok in the first place.

Although there is a lot of negativity, there are creators that stay out of the drama. These creators will stay in a certain group of people, and create videos that help inspire their viewers. One of these groups is WitchTok. WitchTok is the community of witches, Wiccans, and Pagans on TikTok. Essentially, they have created a community that shares love, harmony, and the occasional spell.

Most of the cosplayers have stayed away from the drama as well. They prefer to dress up as characters, or OC characters, and add their own interpretation to their fandoms. One of the biggest fandoms right now is Harry Potter with the hashtag, DracoTok circulating around. DracoTok, created by fans of Draco Malfoy, a beloved character from Harry Potter, has a broad spectrum of Harry Potter fans. It features people who happen to have a crush on that character, to cosplays, to even Tom Felton (the actor of Draco Malfoy) himself.

Considering how TikTok has played out from 2016 to 2020, it is hard to say what the future holds. Some avid TikTok users hope that their favorite creative app will continue to thrive under the given circumstances, but most, including myself, could care less about the future of the app, and moreover wish the drama and negativity come to an end so that we can go back to using the app for its intended purpose (creating fun videos that we wish to share with people online). From the number of users and drama brought by TikTok, the app must be more overrated than underrated. However, opinions are only subjective to one person, and I am sure that I  have differing views than others.