![]() will come in - not in putting numbers on the popularity of the popular app they use, but in laying out exactly what they’re exposing themselves to in terms of data-mining, privacy concerns, and control over what they’re allowed to say. While Afghan-American teenager Feroza Aziz found a community and an escape from real-life racist bullying through sharing her culture and life on TikTok, her videos were censored and her account banned after she posted videos raising awareness of China’s genocidal repression of the Uyghur people.įor regular TikTok users, that’s where most of the value of TikTok, Boom. Foxx talks about the harassment and bullying that comes from public exposure. Inevitably, there are cautionary tales, though Kantayya keeps them brief and focused. Each of the interviewees speaks to different aspects of the app and how it puts popular users under an intense spotlight, giving them an international reach they can use for anything from pushing political and social causes to linking up with superstars for joint projects. She avoids editorializing herself, but gets framing quotes from authors and journalists who talk intently about the app’s reach, design, and place in a crowded market competing for the attention of young people in particular.īut she gets more mileage out of her interviews with a few prominent YouTube creators who’ve gone viral in different areas and different ways, like beatboxer Spencer X, who parlayed his musical videos into a million-dollar career, or activist Deja Foxx, who went viral in 2017 at age 16 after confronting then-senator Jeff Flake over Planned Parenthood at a town-hall meeting. Kantayya spends a little time laying out where TikTok came from, how it was developed in China under the name Douyin, released in 2016, and eventually rebranded internationally as Tiktok after absorbing the American lip-synching app Musical.ly. As a primer, it’s effective and absorbing. The doc addresses widespread ideas and experiences around the app, mostly with a helpful journalistic remove that avoids either scolding or gushing. Once her doc gets going, it’s accessible enough for tech-agnostic people who still don’t own smartphones, but mines insight and intel that even the most habitual TikTok viewers and creators might find useful. (Slow-mo footage of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg looking wide-eyed and nervous, backed by a voiceover quote about TikTok challenging the dominance of Silicon Valley, is a particularly cheesy touch.)īut over the course of this efficient rundown on the history, impact, and future of TikTok (which could easily be mistaken for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2021 directorial debut) Kantayya offers a condensed look at the corporate and political chicanery around the app, and delivers some insight into the ways its most successful users are turning it into a career. The setup is pure TikTok 101, walking the audience through some startling statistics about the app’s meteoric growth and its boasts of a billion active users, complete with a corny montage of news footage and stock footage. In the early going of the new documentary TikTok, Boom., director Shalini Kantayya seems to be setting herself up for a hand-holding walkthrough for the olds who are at best marginally aware that kids are into some new social app. The Polygon team is reporting in from the all-virtual grounds of the 2022 Sundance International Film Festival, with a look at the next wave of upcoming independent releases in sci-fi, horror, and documentary film. ![]()
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