We all know social media is a useful tool in isolation – we wouldn’t have seen anyone without Zoom. But no one knows the power of social media like Gen Z.
When we started going into lockdown, we all adapted to new ways of communicating. But, for some people, this lockdown has consisted of a new type of online activism.
After the video of George Floyd went viral, people kicked into high gear and suddenly everyone wanted to read ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race’. Three years since it was published, it became the first book by a Black British author to hit No. 1 in the UK’s book charts. In lockdown there’s no excuse for a lack of anti-racist education – we’ve got the time to read up on it.
Reni Eddo-Lodge becomes first black British author to top UK book charts https://t.co/vlMXvBiy4q
— The Guardian (@guardian) June 16, 2020
But Gen Zers went a step further and used TikTok as a powerful activist platform.
“But it can be a really useful tool for mobilization – and Gen Z knows this.”
This isn’t surprising considering it has 800 million active users worldwide, and it has the highest engagement rate of any social media platform.
Social media and activism is a tricky thing because it’s easy to post something which doesn’t mean anything and is just an attempt to virtue signal (@Black Out Tuesday).
But it can be a really useful tool for mobilization – and Gen Z knows this.
Over the last few weeks, it’s been filled with montages of protesters to the soundtrack of a Childish Gambino and Post Malone mash-up. One video by @kareemrahma has 8.2 million likes. People have also used the platform to share advice about how to support the movement and what to wear to a protest. TikTok likes to censor this content, but people know which words to change to avoid this.
@kareemrahma this is america #minnesota #minneapolis #protest #blacklivesmatter #blm
♬ Childish Gambino – This Is America / Post Malone – Congratulations – carneyval_
Others have taken to TikTok with poetry and art. A spoken-word piece about police brutality by @goddessofegypt is currently the second most popular post under #BlackLivesMatter, with 4.5 million likes.
@goddessofegypt yes, they were all black. SAY their names. LEARN their stories. FIGHT for a change. #blmmovement #blacklivesmatter #heard
Trolling still exists on TikTok, but people are using the platform to troll in the “real world”.
Just last week K-Pop stans and TikTokers got so many people to sign up for tickets to Trump’s Tulsa rally that Trump’s team expected over a million attendees when only 6,200 showed up.
“But maybe they’re missing the fact that news is being made on TikTok.”
This isn’t an explanation for the low turnout because there wasn’t a cap on the number of tickets that could be signed up for, so they couldn’t take away tickets from people who genuinely wanted to go. But it still undermined Trump and his ego, after he’d boasted that a million people had signed up for the rally.
Now, TikTokers are moving onto a new way to troll Trump by encouraging people to leave one-star reviews for his restaurants, golf courses, and hotels. Kellyanne Conway’s daughter is even taking part.
News outlets have been racking their brains to try to figure out how to use TikTok to reach younger audiences. But maybe they’re missing the fact that news is being made on TikTok.
Ffion Clarke
Featured image courtesy of Kon Karampelas via Unsplash.
ffionclarke
Hi, I'm Ffion! I'm a co-founder of the project and a trainee broadcast journalist at Cardiff University :)