As Ellie Goulding’s “Burn” plays in the background, Amelia Meyer ’21 poses next to a drawing of Shrek, complete with a beret and a moustache. As the beat drops, sparkly green letters that read “oi”—a misspelling of the French word “oui”—pop up on the screen next to her drawing of Shrek. This video appears as the first and most popular on Meyer’s TikTok account, @thankfulamelia, which has over 117,000 views.
Max Davis ’19 has also gone viral on Tik Tok under the username @snailyboy. In one of his videos, which has over 1.3 million views, he pretends to drive his 2005 Honda Civic behind a BMW. Davis lip syncs “Wow, I didn’t know it did that” when the BMW uses a turn signal.
Davis and Meyer are just two Andover students who actively use TikTok, which is currently one of the most popular social media apps according to Business Insider. Meyer believes that TikTok shares commonalities with the now defunct Vine and Musical.ly.
“TikTok is weirdly a child of Vine and Musical.ly, so it’s so bizarre, and the world is changing for the better … It’s a creative channel. In the river of creativity, I am on a boat. It’s just fun,” said Meyer.
When asked about his take on the reason behind TikTok’s popularity, Davis also cited its similarities to Vine and differences to other social media apps, like Instagram, as possibilities.
“I think we’re all drawn to it because we honestly all miss Vine. I think there’s also some things [like how] the platform operates, the way that it interacts with the user, that I like a lot more than watching videos on Instagram. It’s easier and less frustrating to consume content that way… It’s easier for things to get popular on TikTok. It’s set up in a different way,” said Davis.
According to Meyer, she believes that she is reflecting her own persona in all of her creative endeavors, whether it be on Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok.
“I honestly think that I make a lot of content that’s in the style of the Internet and so it just catches on… I share the millennial humor of the world and that really is conveyed in my TikToks,” said Meyer.
Davis said he initially downloaded the app in order to make fun of it. Meyer, on the other hand, was inspired to download it by her hometown friend, Luis Ronquillo, who has 34.2k followers and over seven million views on one of his Tik Toks. Despite the differences in Davis’s and Meyer’s initial intentions about the app, they both see Tik Tok as a place for lighthearted fun.
“I actually made my account last spring, and I did it with my friends, and we were making fun of TikTok … And then I actually started making content and enjoying it. Life is a lot more fun when you enjoy the things you enjoy and don’t bother with the rest,” said Davis.
According to Meyer, her best advice for aspiring TikTok creators is to simply project their own selves, while keeping humor within reasonable boundaries.
Meyer said, “Don’t make dumb content, don’t make it offensive, don’t make it over the top. Be kind in your humor as much as you can, but just go for it. Be confident in your abilities. Shred it [and] just end it, you know?”
