TikTok, the omnipresent video-based social-media app that launched five years ago, has always seemed a less serious, more frivolously youthquakey destination than a number of other online networking services — most obviously Facebook. Yet as Shalini Kantayya’s sprightly, informative documentary “TikTok, Boom.” makes clear, there are more levels to the TikTok phenomenon than there are to almost any other blockbuster app.
There are the countless people who consume it: the kids from all over the world who get addicted to watching the up-to-three-minute-long videos as if they were popping Sour Patch Kids. There are the people who are on it: the makers of those videos, who could be just about anyone and might be doing it just for kicks, though what a lot of them want to be, if they can go viral enough, are influencers — the elite echelon of TikTok stars who have made themselves over into brands, based...
There are the countless people who consume it: the kids from all over the world who get addicted to watching the up-to-three-minute-long videos as if they were popping Sour Patch Kids. There are the people who are on it: the makers of those videos, who could be just about anyone and might be doing it just for kicks, though what a lot of them want to be, if they can go viral enough, are influencers — the elite echelon of TikTok stars who have made themselves over into brands, based...
- 2/5/2022
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
The much-anticipated follow-up to her excellent documentary Coded Bias, Shalini Kantayya’s TikTok, Boom. doesn’t quite know what to make of the addicting viral app—a larger story than simply one about those kids today and their “content creation.” The issue at hand is the narrative builds to what might have been a thrilling geopolitical showdown (had a certain President been re-elected) that never came to pass. Covering TikTok for the business, user, and geopolitical angles, it aims to be comprehensive as it darts between multiple perspectives—the users, creators, activists, journalists, and lawyers fighting privacy battles.
Developed by Byte Dance of Beijing, the company has two products: its heavily regulated Chinese version Douyin, which is so sensitive even a tattoo or bleached hair will prevent a user from going live; and TikTok, its global platform. Founded in a small apartment by Zhang Yiming, the platform is primarily a...
Developed by Byte Dance of Beijing, the company has two products: its heavily regulated Chinese version Douyin, which is so sensitive even a tattoo or bleached hair will prevent a user from going live; and TikTok, its global platform. Founded in a small apartment by Zhang Yiming, the platform is primarily a...
- 1/28/2022
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
The opening frames of “TikTok, Boom.” feature an extreme closeup of a ring-light reflected in a content creator’s eye. It is, at once, a reminder of a familiar cinematic image — the opening of the 1982 film “Blade Runner,” which explores the intersection of humanity and technology — and a promise of an up-close, intimate look at the omnipresent details of digital media, which you may or may not have noticed. However, Shalini Kantayya’s 90-minute documentary fails to live up to the tongue-in-cheek grandeur of this punchy introduction. It
The film chronicles both the rise of Chinese social media giant TikTok as well as the viral success found by some its young creators — among them, beatboxer Spencer X and activists Deja Foxx and Feroza Aziz — as it weaves in and out of stories about privacy in the tech sector and the app’s eventual overlap with global politics. TikTok was a lightning rod for U.
The film chronicles both the rise of Chinese social media giant TikTok as well as the viral success found by some its young creators — among them, beatboxer Spencer X and activists Deja Foxx and Feroza Aziz — as it weaves in and out of stories about privacy in the tech sector and the app’s eventual overlap with global politics. TikTok was a lightning rod for U.
- 1/24/2022
- by Siddhant Adlakha
- Indiewire
The rise of the youth-favored app TikTok in the last few years would seem to provide material for a comedy about American materialism and thirst for popular attention, but director Shalini Kantayya’s wide-ranging documentary “TikTok, Boom.” lets us see that this story is actually more like the ominous basis for a kind of thriller about how the Chinese government might be harvesting data about young users throughout the world.
It all began in 2012 with Zhang Yiming, a Chinese internet entrepreneur who — from humble beginnings in a dreary, Ikea-furnished office — created Douyin, an app on which Chinese youth posted videos and got some very capitalist opportunities to take money to shill for products. One young male user was paid to talk up Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but later in the film he tells us that the app will not allow anyone to post who has tattoos or has...
It all began in 2012 with Zhang Yiming, a Chinese internet entrepreneur who — from humble beginnings in a dreary, Ikea-furnished office — created Douyin, an app on which Chinese youth posted videos and got some very capitalist opportunities to take money to shill for products. One young male user was paid to talk up Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but later in the film he tells us that the app will not allow anyone to post who has tattoos or has...
- 1/24/2022
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
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