TikTok is now the most popular website
- Thread starter ahalpert
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Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
I'm a 60 year-old, college educated, self-employed, white male with no patience for nonsense. I'll bet you can can make a pretty good guess of what I think of TikTok.
NorBro
Major Contributor
Short-form content at its best and how it was supposed to be, IMO.
It's messy and the complete opposite of anything you've learned in video production 101, yet strangely captivating.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
have you seen about this book? Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari
"Social media and many other facets of modern life are destroying our ability to concentrate. We need to reclaim our minds while we still can"
https://www.theguardian.com/science...n-focus-screens-apps-smartphones-social-media
https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply-ebook/dp/B093G9TS91
Imamacuser
Veteran
I'm a Millennial, but I'm old-school when it comes to video and photography. Vertical video is irrational, we've had landscape mode in mobile devices since the Apple Newton, and accelerators since the first iPhone, so there's no good reason why people can't rotate their device into landscape mode.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
what if you're foregoing a massive revenue stream?
I visited it for the first time today. a lot of silly dancing and young women in spiderman costumes shaking their butts.
it's bizarre to me that film language has taken a massive step backward in the social media era to basically its earliest modes of storytelling. like georges melies jump cut magic trick jokes. some social media stars are making crazy money with stuff like that.
but supposedly tiktok has a very sophisticated algorithm and supposedly if you spend time giving it feedback about what you like and dislike, it will supremely tailor the videos it shows you to your preferences. which is why it's become top dog of the internet. so maybe you would end up getting a feed of amazing rocket and wildlife shots, who knows.
I've been intentionally behind the curve on adapting to social media platforms because I hate them and was never sure which would stick around. so basically I let my producers just tell me what format/duration, etc, they need. it might be wise to be proactive about this one, though. if one is in the business of distributing videos on social media.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
what's crazy to me is people who won't watch a movie because it's 2 hours long, but then binge 5 hour-long episodes in a row. basically, I feel like we have commitment issues on a micro scale
NorBro
Major Contributor
But that's the beauty about it and why it's so successful...
It wouldn't have the same effect if it was horizontal and normal like everything else in the world.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
psssh. vertical video is about not wanting to use 2 hands or rotate your wrist. reasonable. but nothing more than that.
NorBro
Major Contributor
Personally, if I could dedicate 1 hour to something (and then 4 more after), I would be able to dedicate 2 hours to one movie so I don't know how many exist like that out there...that doesn't make much sense, IMO.
NorBro
Major Contributor
I think that's a simpleminded observation, TBH. Especially because you don't have enough [almost none] experience with the platform.
In your best interest for your brain and your career, maybe you'll reevaluate once you dedicate more time to it...I think you'll understand better why it works so well.
There aren't just kids on the platform. WS is a top dog, think top 5, or at least top 10 right now.
Don't you think he knows about horizontal video?
https://www.tiktok.com/@willsmith?
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I have experience using a phone, observing others use phones (both for filming and viewing), and lots of experience shooting and editing vertical video for instagram. my assessment stands. the goal is simply to fill the frame of a phone being held in its standard orientation
Thomas Smet
Veteran
We have two eyes for a reason. We see the world that way. No device can change that. With that said I was doing vertical video long before the first smart phone. They were museum installations trade shows displays and corporate lobby setups where a larger touchscreen TV was mounted vertically with content that suited that purpose.
Vertical video does have its place. What we need to be careful of is making sure it is suited for everything. There will and is a tendency to just use it for everything and that doesn't work. Its a new creative tool and not the standard norm. Great for marketing to consumers but not so great for narrative story telling.
Vertical video does have its place. What we need to be careful of is making sure it is suited for everything. There will and is a tendency to just use it for everything and that doesn't work. Its a new creative tool and not the standard norm. Great for marketing to consumers but not so great for narrative story telling.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I sort of thought tiktok was enjoyed as a low-pressure zone where mediocrity and weirdness can run rampant. which, I admit, has appeal. and in that way carves out a new kind of "rhetoric of the real" (a term I learned in college, examples of which are seamless, invisible cutting as in classic Hollywood film language, or, conversely, shaky handheld camera as in Blair Witch Project). So, by that I mean that people feel like they're getting the straight dope, an authentic connection, because of the lack of production value. but I don't think it becomes a substitute for expensive, well-made films; simply an alternative form of media
the vast majority of things I'm forced to shoot or edit vertically work better in landscape orientation because of the subject matter. occasionally there are exceptions. for selfie-style solo videos, it makes a bit more sense that portrait orientation could function well. nevertheless, there's usually group activity or action happening in the horizontal plane. and you usually end up with lots of negative space on top
and again - tiktok did not invent vertical video. you can do it on instagram and everywhere else. it's preferred on instagram. I think tiktok is distinguished by other facets and features
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
I hear what you're saying and everything in your post may be perfectly true . . . but I don't care. I turn down work all the time for stuff I don't want to be a part of or for people I don't want to work with. I have reached the point in my career where money is not my primary motivator. People have been telling me for more than 10 years to get on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and I have no doubt that if I just looked at it from a financial standpoint, my lack of participation in social media has been a financial disaster for me. But I don't care. I have a better life because of it. That is freedom.
NorBro
Major Contributor
YouTube and Facebook had vertical video way before Instagram was even on the drawing board, and that's where all the negative energy was created over the years for people not flipping their phones, but IG made it more famous than the aforementioned after they expanded on their own feature set and popularity.
TikTok's popularity comes down to mainly these things:
(1) Music
(2) Voiceovers
(3) Straight to the point editing
(4) Length of videos
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Ah, the benefits of f--- you money. But yes, I hate social media as well. dvxuser is basically all I use. (and I go on twitter to read glenn greenwald and i go to facebook to message john brawley now that he's left dvxuser)
unfortunately, I'm not sure I can afford to ignore changes in popular viewing habits, if tiktok portends any
but if this year is as good for me as last year, I will forego working on new year's eve for the first time in a while. my wife is always sad that we don't get to share the countdown together, and I admit that I am too. (but she also hates when I work on her birthday. c'mon.... I don't know anyone who takes off work for a birthday....)
I'm a 60 year old college educated, white/Jewish male and my patience if wearing thin too. But, hey, this shtuff is the "new normal". I hate the vertical framing and tell most of my Facebook friends to turn their phones horizontally at least for video. They don't care. And some of them are in the art world. Klimt is rolling in his grave.
Got a link?