We all remember 2014’s epidemic of dancers, lip-syncers, and Viners channeled through the once raging app Musical.ly. But in 2018, Musical.ly died and then was born the addictive app, TikTok. 

Some say that the social media platform is the new Musical.ly. However, it consists of a plethora new features in addition to the old components. The app offers an assortment of filters and is now not solely based off of music, rather creators making their own audio to play over their videos. 

With a value of $75 billion, the app carries a bright culture. 

“I went on there and it was like if musical.ly and vine had a baby – and I live for vines,” sophomore Sruthi Ramesh said. “TikTok definitely has a meme culture, and high schoolers trying to be relatable because everyone has the same struggles. It’s also hilarious because its high schoolers that are on there so it’s really relatable.”

TikTok consists of a combination of 15 second dancing videos, funny monologues, lip-syncs and other teenage hysteria. With as popular as the app is, it’s no surprise that so many people are making TikTok’s of their own. Students from our own school have gained popularity on the app, students such as senior Cody Holtschlag. 

“I downloaded the app as a joke like a lot of people do and I posted videos as a joke and here we are,” Holtschlag said.

Holtschlag received more than 2.6 million views and 500,000 likes after posting a TikTok of him and his fellow members of the marching band (including Ramesh), in the choir room dancing along and playing the opening of the electric song “Freaks” by Timmy Trumpet and Savage. View Cody’s TikTok here.

“For that one, I was like ‘I can play this melody on this instrument and let’s get the Drumline involved,’”Holtschlag said.

Holtschlag is just one of many creators at Liberty. Another one of which is freshman Gordo Garcia. He and a group of boys from the freshman football team put together a short video using the audio “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum. 

Garcia’s TikTok received more than a thousand views and 100+ likes, mainly gaining popularity from the student population and making him a little more well known. 

While most use it as a mechanism to waste time and laugh, much like Ramesh, who uses the platform as “something fun to fall asleep to.” Others who create use TikTok as an outlet for creativity, find that they can express themselves using the app. 

“What I post is a lot of who I am,” Holtschlag said. “The one that got the most views was me playing drum line – the other one I posted yesterday was with my grandparents dog, which, I love dogs. I can express myself through them.”

As TikTok continues to grow in popularity, we can only sit back and watch where it takes us.