I spent a day with TIKTOK’S BIGGEST STARS

tick tock a video sharing social networking service primarily used to create short music lip sync dance comedy and talent videos between 3 and 60 seconds long tik tok was launched in 2016 by its parent company bike dance a beijing-based internet tech company the following year bite dance paid one billion dollars to acquire musically a social platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos shortly after musically was merged into tik-tok drastically increasing tick tock's audience by over a hundred million monthly active users today tick tock has been downloaded over 2 billion times and currently has 800 million active users worldwide my name is anthony padilla and i've sat down with tick tock stars before but a lot has changed in the past two years today i'm going to be sitting down with modern tick-tock stars to learn the truth about those who have garnered tens of millions of followers on the platform is this app simply a harmless video sharing platform that's earned its fair place as a mainstay in modern culture or is it actually a security threat as many including the us government suggests do tick tock's biggest stars enjoy creating content with such an intense focus on easily digestible bite-size clips or does the disposable nature of this short form content leave them feeling trapped in the never-ending cycle of content creation relentlessly churning out entertainment in an attempt to prove they're worthy of their thing [Music] hello lauren hello how are you michael yos poppin zach king what's going on thank you so much for coming on here and teaching me about the world of the biggest tick tock stars i will tell you everything that's going on with the tick tocks what do you consider yourself tick-tocker internet sensation i would just say an overall influencer i guess you know i'm known as a tick talker but i wanted to kind of be like known as just like an influencer in general and now i just go with creator it's like the lamest title possibly i mean with influencer underneath that yeah yeah what does being a tick-tocker especially at your caliber entail it's like kind of having a sense of understanding the gen z mind so it's just kind of like staying updated how long have you been uploading to tiktok in 2016. well i actually had tik tok since musically since 2015. it's been over five years since it was musically what types of videos do you normally post to your tick tock i do a lot of pranks it's all about the reactions and stuff right it's all about the pranks the pranks is my stuff and i'll do like 24 hour challenges here and there picture you watch kind of traditional magic but like the story is a little more cohesive it's modern it feels fresh it feels like a shot on a phone it'll be situations like i'll jump into the side of a car and morph inside one of my famous one is grabbing the eiffel tower and it's like a forced perspective trick it's all in-camera illusions that's that's the way i describe it it's majority dancing it's either dancing with my brother dancing with my siblings my family my friends or public dance videos and it's like the choreographed dances too it's like you know it's like like this and like that and like that that kind of thing uh what do you think is your most popular tic toc it was just a short 15 second video and i did it on my boyfriend i think it has 40 million views 40 million it was just a random prank i wasn't really thinking about like this is gonna go viral and it was like a fake tongue like a silicone tongue thing and i put it in my mouth and i stretched it and then i put i put like a nail through and then i just went up to him and like definitely me and my little brother we're dancing to the song ie he literally has the exact same outfit as me on we're going down the escalator we have like reactions in the background and it's the most liked video on tick tock that is the most liked video on all of tick tock how many likes does that have 25.6 million likes jesus christ you know how many views that has 232 million views dude over 200 million people have laid their eyes on that yeah it's really wild this harry potter one where i was floating on a broomstick and people were like well how are you doing then i roll up and it's like a mirror that was reflecting the ground with legs glued to it and the broomstick handle and there was like a boosted board under it but it's like 2.2 billion views or something like that like it broke tick tock like they didn't they didn't create the counter to go higher than that so it reverted to a negative it started recounting from negative you know you are popular in a platform in when your views break the platform yeah how has your life changed since you went viral on tick tock and picked up a huge audience of your own it just kind of just grew like exponentially now i live in um a house in in la a five billion dollar house with my team a five million dollar house with your team yeah holy [ __ ] how has your confidence level and your your perception of yourself changed since you have gone so viral and take time my confidence level has i think it's obviously just grown and i've just been more like sure of myself have you been able to pinpoint what it is exactly about your content that appeals to so many millions of people it's the wonder factor if there's even that three or four seconds that you believe magic is real and you question reality i think that's what works is no matter what culture you're in universally and you don't have to speak a language you can watch this stuff that's what i think works i feel like your content has so many different layers because i'll find myself just scrolling through your content to like look for the thing that's most visually appealing and then also like this this thing where you can't avoid wanting to figure out how you did it that's my favorite is to read on reddit there's a bunch of rabbit trails really no guys like it's just a jump cut like i'm just really good at freezing yeah exactly it's a similar thing with uh the beginning of all of my i spent a day with videos i crash in from the ceiling and there are threads figuring out elaborate like ways that this could possibly be done i'm like it is the most simple thing in the world but i'm not gonna tell you ever ever a lot of people are completely flabbergasted by the concept that tick-tock stars are able to consider it a full-time job can you explain to people how your viewership on tick-tock allows you to be financially stable and even thrive people and brands and labels will pay money for exposure i did an ad for this company called safeguard and i hit a hundred million views on it damn your ad hit a hundred million two hundred million eyeballs it's the fact that you're able to get that much reach on the platform that and that's why they pay do you ever get judged or mocked for being a tick talker i don't i don't know if i get judged or mocked i mean maybe on cnbc interviews or something where the mainstream people that just do not like have any grasp on what's i did one interview recently i don't remember what network but they were like so what's your what's your best dance move and i've never done a tick tock dance like they're like tick tock dance okay tick tock or you dance so there's obviously gonna people be people that don't like your content so there are a lot of videos where they're just making videos about me and my boyfriend it doesn't really like hurt me that bad but it does it kind of frustrates me that like they're making this video with the intentions that it gets a lot of views to hurt you yeah using our faces just so everyone can agree to dislike one person like what is the reason what are your thoughts about the executive order issued by trump stating that the chinese-owned app will be banned in the u.s by the end of september if it doesn't sell its us assets to an american company youtube google facebook instagram twitter all every single social media even your phone apple they all take your information because they need to know what you like and don't like and that's how they serve you as a as like a brand as an app when you like get social media like that's like the price in a sense as long as we handle security issues or whatever if it is a problem to the nation or whatever like let's handle it but please don't ban the app if there's real security threats like that's a big deal we should take care of that in the end i think the u.s companies also have a ton of data on us like a scary amount if we were to know and so absolutely maybe all tech needs it's like serious security update the ban feels a little bit like it's out of nowhere it feels like is that is that legal i know tick tock is going to try to start suing i feel the most sad for creators who were just getting their start i even have friends who are in that small to mid-tier creator level and they were just hitting it like they were just you know two three million followers and it was gaining traction and that's the bummer i think we'll hopefully see those creators able to pivot before we learn more about the world of tick tock's biggest stars i just want to take a quick moment to mention that i already spent a day with tick-tock stars back in 2018 and it's pretty wild not only just how much this series has evolved over the past two years but how much tick tock as a platform and its influence has also changed i'll go ahead and put a little pop-up link thing up here in the corner if you want to check that out if you so please that's all i wanted to say now back to learning about the world of tick tock's biggest stars does any part of you fear that this this platform which you've been thriving on and is in many ways attached to your your entire livelihood does any part of you fear that that's going to disappear and you're going to be left with nothing on the platform that you work so hard to build oh it would change so much i mean luckily throughout the years i've had people go to my youtube and i have people on my instagram and everything but i think for the most part it would really really change because it's always been my main platform yeah it would be devastating for you yes i would be so sad i would go like tick-tock sadness what do you think about facebook slash instagram's answer to tick-tock with their reels it's a walmart version you're telling me that that instagram who who launched uh a very unique uh totally not ripoff of snapchat called stories it is doing something that's kind of also a rip that makes no sense yeah no they're they're they're reaching i don't know but you know the crazy part is it worked and they did steal a lot of if not most of snapchat's story viewership the reason why i did so well for instagram stories was because they could actually replicate what snapchat had to offer but with rios what they're not able to replicate is the algorithm of how people see your video and that's why it's doing so bad because you couldn't deny like you couldn't push a platform away that was rewarding you with more viewers exactly yeah yeah like i'm not if i'm getting views on tick tock with 50 100 you know all these stuff and i'm never going to be able to have that on instagram reels then what's the point esther wants to know what side of tick tock you're on i'm definitely not alt-tick-tock because that's like that's like the weird side that people like i'm definitely i'm probably gonna say i'm straight tick-tock can you name like any of the cause like i don't think i know as many of the different tick tocks as you can you name what some of those are all tick tock straight tick tock i guess there's the gay tick tock i guess there's the um the black tick tock i don't know if there's like spanish i mean oh no there there is they have like um honestly it's just like it's literally like a high school an endless supply of different communities and sub communities yeah they have real estate tick tock too and and investing tick tock i forgot invest it real estate and investment tick tock yeah there's literally real estate agents that like have like just tours of the house and they're like oh i love when i see the real estate tick tock clearly it's literally like everything i think alternative tick tock is more memes less cringy videos and then i think there's regular tick tock where it's a lot of the new dancing videos so do you think that alternative tik tok is kind of the place where all the people who used to go on tik tok ironically to watch cringe content started making their own content yeah i think alternative tick tock is that and i think it's a lot of older viewers gray rose games wants to know what your thoughts are about the tick talkers who are not concerned about the pandemic and are going out and going to these huge house parties and things like that i definitely don't think those should have happened they should be social distancing but i mean these tick-tockers are crazy they just go through it i feel like a lot of people are like you only turn 21 once you gotta have a par but it's like but then you're also happy happy 21st birthday to me i'm putting everyone's life in danger sorry grandma you don't know like who those people after the party party are going around you know they could be going to grocery stores it's just exposing more people like i'm gonna get a notification tomorrow 5 000 more cases because of this party so i definitely i don't think it should have happened i think they should have maybe waited to do something even bigger and better after the pandemic yeah in 2025 not 2025 jerry wants to know if cyber bullying and hate comments gets you at all you know the the comments that cut the deepest are the ones that you have questioned yourself i wonder if i'll ever make it in hollywood and then you read the comment the next day and it's like you're never going to make it in hollywood yeah yeah exactly after 10 years of doing internet like you've kind of read all the comments possible i love seeing the comments where people say i'm inspired by the work and you know now i'm a filmmaker went to college or all these things but the cyber bullying is a serious problem and i i get nervous for my kid like i'm raising two kids in this environment right now where they don't have phones yet they don't have friends that have phones but someday they're we're gonna have to have those conversations i do feel like it's hard though because many people especially younger people see the internet as very much a real life thing because i've seen how much it's you know impacted them and all their friends are on there so it's hard to differentiate between like someone whose opinion matters someone that i should listen to versus a random person that just wants to hurt them yes because it all comes through the same interface the same ui it could feel the same exactly yeah what's one thing you wish you could say to people who express harsh criticism against tick-tock and tick-tockers in general change is inevitable and especially in social media like there's always going to be the new thing there's always going to be the new trend the new app the new person if you stay stuck thinking that only one way works then you're not you're going to be left behind i remember i was kind of like a naysayer of vine when it first came out cause i'm like what is this six seconds anyone can do that it's just garbage disposable content but then like you know i started getting sucked into it i started enjoying making content on there and then the same with tick-tock even tick-tock i was like oh it's just another fleeting app but it's proven itself you know it doesn't just because the content short doesn't mean that it's any less enjoyable or that it took any less talent to come up with some of these really really interesting concepts this is literally an app just to connect people and and the fact that they can connect people in a different way is really cool even when i first started doing youtube even for like the first five to ten years i'd have older people kind of low-key giving me [ __ ] for being like oh okay so when are you gonna get into like the real media and it's like yeah you just don't understand old man yeah i know exactly what's been your most bizarre fan interaction i was live on my thing people were talking to me and everything and then i got ring at my doorbell while you were live streaming and it was a pizza okay i got a comment that says check your door and then it just feels like the whole broadcast kind of stopped i don't know if it was me in slow motion everything's stopping yeah yeah i got off right away i literally grabbed a knife and i went to my closet and i was so scared whoever the person was called my apartment complex i had high security there where no one could go up and he like refused to hang up the phone and not like let me go down there and pick it up like he wanted it to be delivered to me so not only did you have someone find your address but you had them watching you as you got the knock on the door and they had confirmation that it was you and i'll never look at pizza the same i'll go ahead and ask the question everyone's thinking did you eat the pizza no you're not gonna eat the poisoned pizza with anthrax sprinkled on top why they don't live in the state so they sent it so i basically could have eaten the pizza you also don't want to spread a message to everyone that if they stalk you and knock on your door that you'll open it up and eat whatever food they try shoving in your mouth but but i do like starbucks i do like taco bell so anyone if you if you want to send that to me like what is it about being a tick tock star that brings you the most joy there's something that's reassuring to be uh to kind of be trending again because you've had different periods of your life where you're totally in and it was you know it feels like we're fresh again and part of the buzz has made me want to up what i'm doing too like it started to inspire me again and start making the content like oh a lot of people are watching like i need to up my game or i need to be like challenging myself with different techniques and ideas um and so that's what i love about it is it's pushed me to be better people coming in person and like just almost like crying of happiness just because they're seeing me in person seeing the impact that you've made on people you know i'm doing what i do for a reason i'm making people happy and i'm happy with the videos what do you think is the biggest misconception about tick tock that it's dancing you have everyone i know i posted a community post asking for the audience to give me some questions and they're all like 50 of them are about dancing and dancing yeah and it's for young people but it's really in the last year that demo has gotten a lot older yeah my mom is on the app now all of a sudden she started talking about it and like a bunch of people i know like their parents are now on the app and it's just like a a casual like part of their daily routine now yeah i actually have a parting gift for you a best interviewer shirt which you could get at padilldoshop.com but for you lauren i will ship this to you for free stop i'm honored we're going to be matching all right you got five seconds to shout out or promote anything you want directly in a camera go make sure you just follow me on tik tok if you already follow me that's amazing and if you follow me on youtube and jonathan's page at johnson's world you can follow me on tech talk lauren godwin same as my instagram lauren godwin on youtube lauren godwin think about foster care if you have an extra room in your home i don't know bring it up as a dinner conversation maybe you could foster i need you to subscribe to anthony right now right break oh with the we got the wavy thank you so much zach i feel like i understand the world of being one of the biggest tick tock stars ever just a little bit more thank you anthony for having me after spending the day with these tick tock stars i've come to understand just how much this platform is a breeding ground for creativity and self-expression for so many communities around the world while at first glance it may seem simple to create short form content there's no denying just how much fervor and drive is required to captivate such a massive audience see you later bye guys press alert speaking of which can you rate my tick tock dance oh i'm scared i didn't even notice what song is that now that's um the one you were just singing you nailed the action to be honest i just made that up that wasn't actually any dance does that look like a real dance almost like you're literally the next hype you're gonna be the next charlotte emily on this app

Channel: AnthonyPadilla

Views: 570,086

Rating: 4.8610158 out of 5

Keywords: anthony padilla, padilla, anthony, smosh anthony, anthony padilla smosh, i spent a day with, interview, tiktok, tik tok, zach king, michael le, lauren godwin

Id: ado5mKIziT8

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020