Is TikTok Ruining Music? (Thinkpiece)
Over the last year, very nearly every ad I get on YouTube is for TikTok, the clear cut trendiest social media app right now (how dated is this going to sound in two years) and potentially the most polarising for those people that are aware of it. If you are unaware of it, then you're probably over the age of 25 and therefore its ad campaign (which to me feels like a hammer) utterly ignores you. Essentially, TikTok is a short-form video sharing platform that features a range of different types of content, perhaps most prominently lip syncs and skits. In this thinkpiece, I'll be expressing my opinions on the platform in regards to how it effects music in a brief evaluation style.
Firstly, let's get the obvious out of the way: as with anything, there are positives and there are negatives, and I wouldn't want to be prejudiced simply because the ads are irritating. As a matter of fact, the majority of the music used in the ads are original or generic non-copyrighted pieces, and that isn't the focus of today's evaluation. The music I am referring to is popular music as a whole entity, and how the decreasing attention span of each generation is hurting that music as a whole. Because TikTok videos are a mere 15 seconds long, the amount of one song you're actually hearing is a small fraction, which is not a healthy way to consume music.
When I say that, I don't mean healthy in terms of some kind of musical indigestion but that in my subjective view I think music as an artform should be consumed in its entirety - if you're listening to a song, you should listen to all of it and not just 15 seconds, or you aren't going to be able to appreciate the art for what it is. As great as a way to discover music as it can be, it seems sad to me that large proportions of my generation only know those specific few seconds of a song that have got popular or started a trend on TikTok. The consequence this will have on albums is a worry I have, as I believe they could quite easily begin a decline again if they become irrelevant with my generation in this TikTok age.
This isn't the first time that a short-form video sharing platform has raised this concern with people however, as TikTok's spiritual predecessor Vine did much the same thing with 6 second clips that spawned a wave of "Vine songs" over the course of the few years it was popular last decade. This labelling itself frustrates me whether we're talking about TikTok or Vine, as these songs are independent to the platform that made them popular, just as you are independent from your parents and school, despite them raising you. This labelling is quite restrictive as it restricts the artist from being anything more than a momentary sensation tied to that one 15 second clip of one of their songs, a sort of extreme form of a one hit wonder.
Most of the points I've brought up so far have been pretty negative, so I wanted to take a moment to highlight something wonderful that TikTok is able to do, and that's allowing small, up-and-coming artists to gain momentum if their song blows up on the platform, an occurrence that is helped by how frequently trends rise and fall. This gives quite a lot of opportunity to smaller artists, and I'm very grateful that "we fell in love in october" by Girl In Red was able to gain as much recognition as it did directly because of its popularity on TikTok, as that has become one of my all time favourite songs since it came out in 2018. As I said, it's a force for both good and bad.
So, in conclusion, I think it's impossible to deny that TikTok's inclusivity and opportunity are its greatest assets when concerning music, and for as subjective as each song is I believe it's great that any song has the chance to make it big. The issues come when you look at the effect of the having such short clips of songs does to society and how disposable and replaceable it makes any song that is lucky enough to get popular on the platform. Overall, I'm afraid I can't say that it has a net positive on the current state of music. That isn't to say you can't enjoy TikTok, but for somelike like me who both loves listening to and creating music the idea of one of my songs being known for 15 seconds is a sad little thought.
Firstly, let's get the obvious out of the way: as with anything, there are positives and there are negatives, and I wouldn't want to be prejudiced simply because the ads are irritating. As a matter of fact, the majority of the music used in the ads are original or generic non-copyrighted pieces, and that isn't the focus of today's evaluation. The music I am referring to is popular music as a whole entity, and how the decreasing attention span of each generation is hurting that music as a whole. Because TikTok videos are a mere 15 seconds long, the amount of one song you're actually hearing is a small fraction, which is not a healthy way to consume music.
When I say that, I don't mean healthy in terms of some kind of musical indigestion but that in my subjective view I think music as an artform should be consumed in its entirety - if you're listening to a song, you should listen to all of it and not just 15 seconds, or you aren't going to be able to appreciate the art for what it is. As great as a way to discover music as it can be, it seems sad to me that large proportions of my generation only know those specific few seconds of a song that have got popular or started a trend on TikTok. The consequence this will have on albums is a worry I have, as I believe they could quite easily begin a decline again if they become irrelevant with my generation in this TikTok age.
This isn't the first time that a short-form video sharing platform has raised this concern with people however, as TikTok's spiritual predecessor Vine did much the same thing with 6 second clips that spawned a wave of "Vine songs" over the course of the few years it was popular last decade. This labelling itself frustrates me whether we're talking about TikTok or Vine, as these songs are independent to the platform that made them popular, just as you are independent from your parents and school, despite them raising you. This labelling is quite restrictive as it restricts the artist from being anything more than a momentary sensation tied to that one 15 second clip of one of their songs, a sort of extreme form of a one hit wonder.
Most of the points I've brought up so far have been pretty negative, so I wanted to take a moment to highlight something wonderful that TikTok is able to do, and that's allowing small, up-and-coming artists to gain momentum if their song blows up on the platform, an occurrence that is helped by how frequently trends rise and fall. This gives quite a lot of opportunity to smaller artists, and I'm very grateful that "we fell in love in october" by Girl In Red was able to gain as much recognition as it did directly because of its popularity on TikTok, as that has become one of my all time favourite songs since it came out in 2018. As I said, it's a force for both good and bad.
So, in conclusion, I think it's impossible to deny that TikTok's inclusivity and opportunity are its greatest assets when concerning music, and for as subjective as each song is I believe it's great that any song has the chance to make it big. The issues come when you look at the effect of the having such short clips of songs does to society and how disposable and replaceable it makes any song that is lucky enough to get popular on the platform. Overall, I'm afraid I can't say that it has a net positive on the current state of music. That isn't to say you can't enjoy TikTok, but for somelike like me who both loves listening to and creating music the idea of one of my songs being known for 15 seconds is a sad little thought.
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Thank you so very much for reading, if you're here at the bottom hopefully you spent more than 15 seconds on this article, either way I appreciate your time.
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