TikTok Takes Over

SEP 15 2020 · 12:00

Endless scrolling on TikTok, the gesture that displaced the reaction GIF. By September 2021 the app crossed one billion monthly active users. Place: ByteDance, Beijing · TikTok operations worldwide Figures: Zhang Yiming, ByteDance founder · Shou Chew, incoming TikTok CEO TikTok crosses one billion monthly active users by September 2021, less than four years after its international launch. The Instagram Reels feature ships in August 2020 in direct response; YouTube Shorts launches globally in July 2021. Short-form vertical video — with sound, with a recommendation algorithm that does not require following anyone — becomes the dominant medium for reaction content for users under 30. The animated GIF retains its keyboard-embedded position in iMessage, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, and Teams. What it loses, between 2020 and 2022, is the cultural primary slot. The reaction-GIF as a unit of online vocabulary, scaled by Tumblr (see [[tumblr-launches-2007]]) and industrialized by Giphy (see [[giphy-founded-2013]]), is now an older generation's vocabulary.