

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 (dances, pranks, sexy flaunts, tutorials, monologues, protest messages) as if they were popping Sour Patch Kids.

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. Deeply researched and engaging, it breaks down some of the biggest questions for the future of work and culture.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. This book charts the story of an app on the rise that's changing the world of tech, charting the future of culture, and creating a new world of work: the creator economy.
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He knows the product, the people, and the entire ecosystem inside and out, and it is this familiarity that makes his telling so compelling, because he knows how to make you feel like you, too, are an insider in this strange new world." - Rui Ma, founder, Tech Buzz China" "It's clear that Stokel-Walker's strength is that he's not just TikTok-literate, he's TikTok-fluent. David Craig, Clinical Professor, USC Annenberg This is a must read for students, scholars, and policy makers. Blending journalistic narrative with state-of-the-art academic research, no other author comes close to weaving this epic tale of the rise of China’s first global platform threatening Silicon’s Valley hegemony while operating as inflection point around the rise of one globe two Internet systems. In TikTok Boom, Stokel-Walker matches the unparalleled breadth and scale of growth of the Chinese platform with remarkable depth and spectacular wisdom. This book is vital to understanding how it works and the impact it's having.” - Damian Collins, former chairman of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee "TikTok is perhaps the fastest growing and most addictive social media tool yet created. TikTok Boom presents a nuanced, informed and incisive read on the characters and strategies behind the world's new tech order. He also goes behind the scenes at its ambitious Chinese owner, ByteDance, which is on its way to becoming Beijing's Google. India has banned TikTok.ĭo the concerns about TikTok's Chinese ownership justify TikTok's treatment in the West? How has it taken over the world in just a few years, and what does its success mean for the future of technology? In TikTok Boom, journalist and author of YouTubers, Chris Stokel-Walker has interviewed hundreds of people connected to the short-form video app. TikTok is the fastest growing app in the world, and the first to challenge Silicon Valley's dominance of social media. Donald Trump claimed it was a threat to US security and tried to outlaw it. It is rare for a business analysis to read like a thriller - this one does." - Azeem Azhar, Founder, Exponential View

"A careful, detailed teardown of the people, culture and technology behind the world's most dynamic social network, TikTok.
