Tag: tiktok’s
Shopping app Temu is using TikTok’s strategy to keep its No. 1 spot on App Store
Temu, a shopping app from Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, is having quite the run as the No. 1 app on the U.S. app stores. The mobile shopping app hit the top spot on the U.S. App Store in September and has continued to hold a highly ranked position in the months that followed, including as […]
Shopping app Temu is using TikTok’s strategy to keep its No. 1 spot on App Store by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch
TikTok’s ‘corecore’ is the latest iteration of absurdist meme art
TikTok goes a little overboard when it comes to categorizing every last aesthetic into its own microtrend. You notice it when Spotify Wrapped calls your music taste goblincore, or when you strangely end up at a charity gala in San Francisco and a tech exec asks you if he should be concerned that his teen […]
TikTok’s ‘corecore’ is the latest iteration of absurdist meme art by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
Explaining corecore: How TikTok’s newest trend may be a genuine Gen-Z art form
Infinitely doom-scrolling on TikTok at 2 a.m. has become a common experience for a lot of people these days, and if you’re one of those people (me included), you’ve probably seen a video like this:
“Okay,” you say to yourself. “That’s kind of sad, but also, same.” You keep scrolling and then you find another one. And another one. And another one. All these TikToks share the same qualities: Amateurishly-edited clips of found media, a blisteringly quick editing style, and depressing, melancholic music. They all share the same hashtag: #corecore.
Before you start assuming that I’m just making up words, the #corecore hashtag, and its cousin #nichetok, have a combined 600 million views on the social media platform at the time of this writing. At first glance, #corecore videos seem to be a meaningless collage of videos that connect to a shared message. However, it is the idea of corecore and what it can (or could) represent that has given rise to what some consider a genuine form of art by Gen-Z.
What is corecore?
Corecore is an aesthetic trend on TikTok that derives its name from an ironic use of the -core suffix. In the modern internet age, the -core suffix is used to describe shared ideas of culture, genres, or aesthetics and groups them all into one set category — think cottagecore or goblincore (which in turn come from the music genre hardcore, and the tendency of new hardcore-related subgenres to use -core as a suffix, as in “emo-core”). So through its name, corecore makes itself sound like the antithesis of genre itself; its content can be anything and its creators can use any type of media to convey a central premise. On the corecore page on Know Your Meme, the site states that the trend “plays on the -core suffix by making a ‘core’ out of the collective consciousness of all ‘cores.'”
Kieran Press-Reynolds, a digital culture blogger who first wrote about corecore back in November 2022, is an eagle-eyed trendwatcher who writes extensively on niche internet microgenres. He told Mashable that corecore is essentially an anti-trend that can be loosely defined as similar and disparate visual and audio clips that are meant to evoke some form of emotion.
“They’re like meme-poems, rife with short movie clips, music, and soundbites that are often somewhat nostalgic, nihilistic, or poignant,” Press-Reynolds told me through email. “When I wrote about the genre back in late November, most of the popular clips I saw were really frenetic — they were these rapid-fire 15-second montages of surreal memes (like cute cats, alpha wolf edits) with intense music (Drain Gang and other internet rap) that didn’t have much of a discernible meaning beyond the pleasurable rush of recognizable audiovisual material.”
While the style of short-form meme montages has existed since the early days of Youtube (remember Youtube Poop), according to Know Your Meme, the corecore hashtag itself was first seen on Tumblr in 2020. However, corecore on Tumblr, and especially Twitter, existed solely as a pun on the literal definition of core, created out of users’ frustrations of the over-saturation with the concept of “-cores.”
Corecore, by the way, is not the same as nichetok, although, for a lot of users on TikTok, the terms are seemingly interchangeable. For the sake of clarity, Know Your Meme says nichetok is an aesthetic movement made up mostly of shitposts that reference multiple fandoms, subcultures, and genres — requiring one to have a niche understanding of TikTok trends.
New life on TikTok
As Chase DiBenedetto wrote for Mashable, “TikTok has shifted many Gen Z users towards the romanticization of Millennium (and Tumblr) aesthetics, from fashion to tech.” Just like YouTube Poop before it, corecore is essentially a fresh take on an old premise. Whereas #corecore existed on Twitter and Tumblr as fun jabs towards a saturated naming convention, the aesthetic itself took on new life upon its introduction to TikTok.
Some of the first corecore videos to arrive on TikTok were published around Jan. 2021, according to Press-Reynolds and Know Your Meme. These first TikToks interlinked found media to push a certain message, with either an anti-capitalist or environmentalist slant. When done right, a creator can, in sequence, splice together a clip from a 30-year-old movie, an unrelated actor’s interview, and random b-roll of a house tour, to create a compelling impression that hints at meaning, but may not be anything more than a feeling.
“I think there’s a kind of therapeutic quality to these videos for some people,” Press-Reynold said. “The chaotic and disordered structure of these clips […] deftly capture feelings of technological disarray and ennui that I think a lot of young people relate with nowadays. It’s like a balm for TikTok-broken brains.”
Corecore edits do not exist in a binary, however. Some can be unintelligible meme dumps that are upbeat, bordering on dada-style collage art and other edits are just clips of cats and Fortnite mashed together (also referred to as #pinkcore). Some of the most common signifiers of corecore edits included British Football clips, Family Guy, Blade Runner 2049, any clip of Jake Gyllenhaal screaming, and melancholic music (usually a soft piano score or Aphex Twin).
This is what makes corecore so interesting: one’s feelings that couldn’t be expressed through words are instead presented through images. Whether that emotion is happiness, a fear of the future, or the excitement of falling in love, corecore edits, through the use of multimedia, speak to our common experience. It’s what one Youtube creator describes as a “beautiful art form that fits our generation so perfectly.”
Corecore stands as the complete opposite of what we consider memes. With memes, a piece of film or television is divorced from its source material, taking on a life of its own until you don’t even know what the original context even was. In a corecore post, individually the snippets don’t make sense, but when connected the video gives them a shared context, and therefore a certain power. Corecore edits taken as a whole then create a more powerful relatedness among the genre’s enjoyers, something no Breaking Bad meme on Twitter can offer.
Press-Reynolds says that he believes corecore to be a genuine art movement, although not in the traditional sense. “The videos are simple but they have a lot of emotional expression — or if they don’t, that’s still expressing something, the absurd realness of vibelessness.”
Wasted potential, or natural evolution?
The hashtags for corecore and nichetok sit at around 600 million views, making it an increasingly popular trend on TikTok. Ironically, however, the promise of what corecore can be, as both an art form and an anti-trend, is arguably being ruined by its trendiness.
As pointed out by fans and critics of corecore, one of the problems with any trend that becomes popular on TikTok, and social media in general, is that eventually, the rat race to recreate content that’s already trendy leads to a dilution of the original purpose of corecore.
I don’t see how culture can keep fracturing and growing increasingly decentralized without reaching some sort of impasse — people can’t keep creating cores and cores and corecores forever.
Matt Lorence points this out in his TikTok about the misuse of corecore. He says in his video that “people are taking these movements with strong political ideologies, completely divorcing them of that, and turning them into soulless and meaningless aesthetic trends.” He concludes that while he doesn’t know the reason for this, he believes that users don’t want to intellectually engage with the art that they consume.
In his video on the subject of corecore and Gen-Z’s self-pity obsession, the YouTuber known as angle says that TikTok has become a landfill of “overly self-pitiful forms of content” and expresses his disappointment with where the corecore trend is heading.
“Gen-Z as a whole constantly takes things from older ideas and modernizes them in a way that is socially acceptable, just to get over it and deal with the next thing in a few months,” he says in his video. “More or less my concern with [corecore] is that something so unique and different, that is exclusive to the internet babies of our day and age, is being wasted due to that very same generation’s habit of running things to the ground for the sake of internet points.”
He continues, stating that when he comes across corecore videos now, they’re lazy attempts at describing a feeling (using the same clips and music) that usually boils down to “she left, and took the kids.”
“It can start to feel like just listlessly scrolling, your mind overwhelmed by hashtags, drowned in a digital murk of media that doesn’t ever really profoundly affect you but kind of swishes over you like a limply lapping tide,” Press-Reynolds said. “I don’t see how culture can keep fracturing and growing increasingly decentralized without reaching some sort of impasse — people can’t keep creating cores and cores and corecores forever.”
Corecore hasn’t exactly hit the mainstream yet, but there’s a burning question already about what happens when it does: can it avoid being yet another in an endless revolving door of fads and aesthetics that float by meaninglessly, and rather depressingly, like, well, a corecore video?
Questions linger over Facebook, Twitter, TikTok’s commitment to uphold election integrity in Africa, as countries head to polls
A dozen countries in Africa, including Nigeria, the continent’s biggest economy and democracy, are expected to hold their presidential elections next year, and questions linger on how well social media platforms are prepared to curb misinformation and disinformation after claims of botched content moderation during Kenya’s polls last August. Concerns are mounting as it emerges […]
Questions linger over Facebook, Twitter, TikTok’s commitment to uphold election integrity in Africa, as countries head to polls by Annie Njanja originally published on TechCrunch
TikTok’s parent company accessed the data of US journalists
An internal investigation at TikTok parent company ByteDance found that several employees accessed the TikTok data of at least two US journalists and a “small number” of other people connected to them, according to internal emails obtained by The Verge that were first reported by The New York Times. The accessed data includes the reporters’ IP addresses, which were used to see if they had been physically near TikTok employees who were suspected of leaking information to the press.
In an email to employees, the CEO of Beijing-based ByteDance, Rubo Liang, said he was “deeply disappointed” and that “the public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals.” In…
I eat only meat and salt on TikTok’s viral Lion Diet – it’s been a ‘cure-all’ that ended my chronic illness misery
THE latest diet trend on TikTok is promising to be a “cure-all” for all of your health issues – and you only have to eat three things for 30 days.
The Lion Diet, which has been called a “healing elimination diet” has the person eating nothing but meat, salt, and water for 30 days.
The Lion Diet is the latest fad taking over TikTok[/caption]
People are only supposed to have meat, salt, and drink water while on the diet[/caption]
Several people have shared their experience with the diet, claiming it helped with allergies, headaches, bad skin, and regulated their moods.
RorysKitchen, a TikToker who suffers from food intolerances documented his month-long journey trying the diet to his more than 220,000 followers.
Rory set out to find out three things about the diet: If it could heal his gut, autoimmune issues, and health conditions; what his body would look like after eating only meat; and what his poop would look like.
As of his latest video, Rory is on day 23 of the diet and said his skin has started to look better, his sinuses were clearing up and he had more “regular” bowel movements.
TedEx speaker Mikhaila Peterson is credited with creating the diet.
“It eliminates all other dietary variables, and sustains your body’s nutritional needs, allowing you to thrive,” she wrote on her website.
Peterson, 28, struggled with several health issues since childhood.
She was chronically ill until she was 23 and suffered from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors withdrawal until she was 25.
Peterson also suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and was put on immune suppressants when she was eight.
For years, Peterson struggled with chronic fatigue and itching all over her body and spent a year on OxyContin after having ankle joint replacement surgery.
She decided to change her diet after developing a rash associated with Celiac disease in the hopes that it would help her problems.
Peterson started with a restrictive paleo diet before eventually eating only meat.
“My brain and gut were so damaged that an all-beef or ruminant meat (like lamb and bison) diet, what I call the Lion Diet, was all I could tolerate,” she wrote.
Five years later, Peterson is still on the diet and is “healthy.”
She now hopes to show people that “they can improve their life themselves.”
Supporters of the diet claim that it helps with inflammation, improves moods, and relive issues such as headaches, insomnia, and allergies.
However, others have called the diet extreme and overly restrictive, saying that it’s unsustainable and unhealthy.
“The Lion Diet eliminates all foods except salt, water, and meat from ruminant animals,” said researchers from Healthline.
“In addition to being high in saturated fat, it’s unsustainable and likely to lead to nutritional deficiencies.”
The company also warned that it’s nearly impossible to dine out while on this diet.
“In addition to being potentially very unhealthy, the Lion Diet is difficult to follow and unsustainable in the long term.”
Several people claim it has cured bad skin and allergies, and regulated their moods[/caption]
However, others say the diet isn’t sustainable[/caption]
Noodle, TikTok’s ‘No Bones Day’ pug, has died at 14
Noodle, the TikTok-famous pug who sometimes had no bones, has died. The 14-year-old dog’s death was announced in a teary minute-long TikTok posted by his owner Jonathan Graziano over the weekend.
“I’m so sorry to have to share this, but Noodle passed yesterday,” said Graziano. “He was at home, he was in my arms, and this is incredibly sad. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s a day that I always knew was coming but never thought would arrive, and although this is very sad I wanted to let you know and I wanted to encourage you to celebrate him while we’re navigating this sadness.”
Noodle rose to fame in 2021 due to a series of daily TikToks posted by Graziano, in which he picked up the pug and set it on its feet. If Noodle stayed standing then it was a “Bones Day,” but if the elderly dog collapsed it was deemed a “No Bones Day.”
TikTok users soon began treating Noodle’s behaviour as an oracle for the day ahead, much like checking their horoscope. While they considered Bones Days likely to be positive and productive, No Bones Days were interpreted as potentially difficult.
“He lived 14 and a half years, which is about as long as you can hope a dog can, and he made millions of people happy,” Graziano said. “What a run. Thank you for loving him, thank you for embracing us, and give your dog a cheese ball tonight. But it has to be the fake stuff.”
Graziano’s TikTok account accumulated 4.5 million followers interested in seeing whether the old pug would fall over every day.
TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm—It’s Your Phone
Behind TikTok’s Boom: A Legion of Traumatized, $10-A-Day Content Moderators
They told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism about widespread occupational trauma and inadequate psychological support, demanding or impossible performance targets, punitive salary deductions and extensive surveillance. Their attempts to unionize to secure better conditions have been opposed repeatedly. TikTok’s rapid growth in Latin America — it has an estimated 100 million users in the region — has led to the hiring of hundreds of moderators in Colombia to fight a never-ending battle against disturbing content. They work six days a week on day and night shifts, with some paid as little as 1.2 million pesos ($254) a month, compared to around $2,900 for content moderators based in the U.S….
The nine moderators could only speak anonymously for fear they might lose their jobs, or undermine their future employment prospects…. The TikTok moderation system described by these moderators is built on exacting performance targets. If workers do not get through a huge number of videos, or return late from a break, they can lose out on a monthly bonus worth up to a quarter of their salary. It is easy to lose out on the much-needed extra cash. Ãlvaro, a current TikTok moderator, has a target of 900 videos per day, with about 15 seconds to view each video. He works from 6am to 3pm, with two hours of break time, and his base salary is 1.2m pesos ($254) a month, only slightly higher than Colombia’s minimum salary…. He once received a disciplinary notice known internally as an “action form” for only managing to watch 700 videos in a shift, which was considered “work avoidance”. Once a worker has an action form, he says, they cannot receive a bonus that month….
Outsourcing moderation to countries in the global south like Colombia works for businesses because it is cheap, and workers are poorly protected…. For now… TikTok’s low-paid moderators will keep working to their grueling targets, sifting through some of the internet’s most nightmarish content.
The moderators interviewed all had “contractor” status with Paris-based Teleperformance, which last year reported €557 million ($620m) in profit on €7.1 billion ($8.1 billion) in revenue. In fact, Teleperformance has more than 7,000 content moderators globally, according to stats from Market Research Future, and the moderators interviewed said that besides TikTok, Teleperformance also provided content moderators to Meta, Discord, and Microsoft.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.