Should you join TikTok? What is TikTok?

The teens are doing it. Bachelor Nation is doing it. Jack Black is doing it. Let’s help you answer the question on everyone’s mind: Should I join TikTok?

Welcome to TikTok, Jack Black. Yesterday morning began like every other morning for those of us, like Jack Black, lucky enough to only be tasked with staying home to do our part to prevent mass death. Sure, we’re getting a bit stir crazy, looking at the outside world with increased appreciation, but there’s plenty to keep us occupied. There are many diversions, including but not limited to Tiger King, of course, and TikTok.

Yesterday morning, which might as well have been this morning now that time no longer exists as a concept, Jack Black decided to occupy himself with the latter. Black fired up TikTok, recorded a little dance and posted that bad boy on his newly created account.

You love to see it. Perhaps you may even want to recreate it. Wait, you may be thinking. Is now the time to join TikTok? Is now the time to learn what TikTok is?

What is TikTok?

Let’s back up. TikTok is technically a social networking platform, but it’s more effectively a shortform video host. Which is to say, due to its interface and algorithm, it has a lot more in common with YouTube than it does Instagram. Though you can, technically, follow and connect with other users and TikTok influencers do exist, the user experience is not conducive to monetizing clout like other platforms. It’s a whole thing. Moving on.

TikTok users post short looping videos, 3 to 60 seconds in length, that they then tag with various hashtags which tend to result in viral trends, challenges and frequently dances. The aforementioned interface is a mess and a mystery, particularly if you are operating without an account.

It is, undoubtedly, a platform populated by Gen Z. The teens run TikTok and they are the true artists of the platforms. Boomers, for some reason, and Gen X tend to put out some truly great TikTok content as well, though usually behind any good Boomer/Gen X TikTok is a content-savvy teen who is their child or grandchild.

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Should you join TikTok?

Whether you should join TikTok depends on what your intention is and how/which social media platforms you are already on. If you are just looking for additional content to keep you entertained, you probably don’t need a personal TikTok (yet).

The best and most viral TikToks are, without fail, ripped and uploaded to Twitter and Instagram. So if you follow the right people on your platform of choice, you can usually find a cultivated selection of entertaining TikToks without having to navigate the forest of TikToks yourself. However, trying to make sense of TikTok as a beginner is a sure-fire way to pass a lot of time. Similarly, the rabbit hole of watching TikToks is another excellent way to lose hours of your life — if you are even still keeping track of hours.

If you, instead or in addition, want to get in on the TikTok game yourself, then, yes, you will need a TikTok account for that. But you may also want to think long and hard about whether this is a decision you want to make. TikToks are wonderful and weird, the best TikToks channel a kind of theater of the absurd that, yes, will likely proliferate as we all self-isolate, but also will live on forever — as things on the internet tend to do — even as we all put on pants again and go back to work.

This quarantine will likely be long. Who knows where your mind will go and what you’ll be inspired to do. But one day, you will see your boss face-to-face again and your boss will have probably seen your TikToks.

So, TikTok if you want to. Don’t let us hold you back from comfort or entertainment in this phenomenally stressful time. But please, TikTok responsibly.