TikTok in the context of ByteDance

Instapoetry is a style of written poetry that emerged after the advent of social media, especially on Instagram. The term has been used to describe poems written specifically for being shared online, most commonly on Instagram, but also other platforms including Twitter, Tumblr, and TikTok.

The style usually consists of short, direct lines in aesthetically pleasing fonts that are sometimes accompanied by an image or drawing, often without rhyme schemes or meter, and dealing with commonplace themes. Literary critics, poets, and writers have contended with Instapoetry's focus on brevity and plainness compared to traditional poetry, criticizing it for reproducing rather than subverting normative ideas on social media platforms that favor popularity and accessibility over craft and depth.

Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming of video or audio in real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as streaming, the real-time nature of livestreaming differentiates it from other non-live broadcast forms of streamed media such as video-on-demand, vlogs and video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.

Livestreaming services encompass a wide variety of topics, including social media, video games, professional sports, and lifecasting. Platforms such as Facebook Live, Periscope, Kuaishou, Douyu, bilibili, YouTube, and 17 include the streaming of scheduled promotions and celebrity events as well as streaming between users, as in videotelephony. Livestreaming sites such as Twitch and Kick have become popular outlets for watching people play video games, such as in esports, Let's Play-style gaming, or speedrunning. Live coverage of sporting events is a common application.

Kick (also known as Kick.com) is an Australian video livestreaming service. It is operated by Kick Streaming Pty Ltd and backed by online casino company Stake.com and streaming personality Trainwreckstv. Kick was founded in 2022 as a competitor to Twitch, with a focus on looser moderation, higher revenue shares for streamers, and the inclusion of online gambling content which has been banned from other platforms. In 2023, Kick made multiple high-profile deals with streamers including Adin Ross and xQc. In Q3 2025, StreamCharts listed Kick.com as the fourth most watched livestreaming platform (among those monitored by the site) behind YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. Kick is also the sponsor of the Sauber Motorsport racing team in Formula One.

An Internet meme, or meme (/miːm/, MEEM), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through social media platforms. Internet memes manifest in a variety of formats, including images, videos, GIFs, and other viral content. Key characteristics of memes include their tendency to be parodied, their use of intertextuality, their viral dissemination, and their continual evolution. The term meme was originally introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene to describe the concept of cultural transmission.

The term Internet meme was coined by Mike Godwin in 1993 in reference to the way memes proliferated through early online communities, including message boards, Usenet groups, and email. The emergence of social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram further diversified memes and accelerated their spread. Newer meme genres include "dank" and surrealist memes, as well as short-form videos popularized by platforms like Vine and TikTok. Newer internet memes are often defined as brain rot.

Internet aesthetics are visual styles, subcultures, and thematic trends that originated or proliferated primarily through the Internet. Originally emerging out of the early online blogosphere among Millennials in the late 2000s and gaining significant cultural traction throughout the 2010s and 2020s amongst Gen Z. Internet aesthetics encompass a wide range of niche communities and visual identities associated with contemporary youth subcultures defined by their digital circulation, curated imagery, and symbolic references to technology, nostalgia, and alternative culture, typically blending elements of fashion, music, visual art, and memes.

These aesthetics were originally often associated with early blog-based platforms such as Tumblr. By the late 2010s to early 2020s, they evolved to encompass social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, with the COVID-19 lockdowns being linked to the wider proliferation of these aesthetics online. Notable internet aesthetics include Seapunk, Vaporwave, Cottagecore, Goblincore, Gorpcore, E-girls and E-boys, Dark academia, and 2020 Alt.

Instagram tourism or selfie tourism is the phenomenon by which an area sees an increase in tourism, often to the point of overtourism, due to exposure on social media and the resulting desire created in others to recreate the images they've seen on Instagram or TikTok. Studies in 2018 and 2023 found that social media exposure affected tourism and connected it to the sociological concept of conspicuous consumption.

Instagram tourism is often seen in areas which lend themselves to the taking of selfies with a background of picturesque natural beauty or vibrant city scenes. It has been characterized as a superficial consumption of rather than sincere interest in a place, and those engaging in it characterized as "people coming to get a photo of the photos they've seen".

Media psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the interactions between human behavior, media, and technology. Media psychology is not limited to mass media or media content; it includes all forms of mediated communication and media technology-related behaviors, such as the use, design, impact, and sharing behaviors. This branch is a relatively new field of study because of technological advancements. It uses various critical analysis and investigation methods to develop a working model of a user's perception of media experience. These methods are employed for society as a whole and individually. Media psychologists can perform activities that include consulting, design, and production in various media like television, video games, films, and news broadcasting.

The field of media psychology explores how recent, newer social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have become more popular and how they are creating new media and mental health challenges that are not widely researched. Newer apps like Instagram and Snapchat have changed how people consume media, communicate, and deal with their self-image. These social media platforms have introduced complex mental dynamics that may contribute to mental health challenges like negative body image, depression, and anxiety, which could affect users and add to unhealthy media psychology effects. In response, researchers have started to focus their studies on these platforms' psychological effects, specifically the effects on younger users, looking into issues like social comparison and body image.

A social media influencer, also known as an online influencer, or simply influencer, is a person who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos, and updates. This is done by using direct audience interaction to establish authenticity, expertise, and appeal, and by standing apart from traditional celebrities by growing that person's platform through social media rather than pre-existing fame. The modern referent of the term is commonly a paid role in which a business entity pays for the social media influence-for-hire activity to promote its products and services, known as influencer marketing. Types of influencers include fashion influencer, travel influencer, and virtual influencer, and they involve content creators and streamers.

Some influencers are associated primarily with specific social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram, or Pinterest; many influencers are also considered internet celebrities. As of 2023, Instagram is the social media platform businesses spend the most advertising money towards marketing with influencers. However, influencers can have an impact on any social media network.

In May 2024, protests and riots broke out in New Caledonia, a sui generis collectivity of overseas France in the Pacific Ocean. The violent protests led to at least 13 deaths, the declaration of a state of emergency on 16 May, deployment of the French army, and the block of the social network TikTok.

Violence broke out following a controversial voting reform aiming to change existing conditions which prevent up to one-fifth of the population from voting in provincial elections. Following the Nouméa Accord, the electorate for local elections was restricted to pre-1998 residents of the islands and their descendants who have maintained continuous residence on the territory for at least 10 years. The system, which excludes migrants from European and Polynesian parts of France, including their adult children, had been judged acceptable in 2005 as part of a decolonisation process by the European Court of Human Rights given that it was a provisional measure. Voters in all three referendums were in favour of remaining part of France, though the 2021 referendum, conducted in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, was boycotted by most independence supporters. For the French government, the referendums fulfilled the Nouméa Accord process, but independence advocates, who rejected the legitimacy of the boycotted 2021 referendum, considered the process defined by the Nouméa Accord to be still ongoing.

Influencer marketing (also known as influence marketing) is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, individuals and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencers are people (or something) with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok or other online channels. Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post.

Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States. The FTC started enforcing this on a large scale in 2016, sending letters to several companies and influencers who had failed to disclose sponsored content. Many Instagram influencers started using #ad in response and feared that this would affect their income. However, fans increased their engagement after the disclosure, satisfied they were landing such deals. This success led to some creators creating their own product lines in 2017. Some influencers fake sponsored content to gain credibility and promote themselves. Backlash to sponsored content became more prominent in mid-2018, leading to many influencers to focus instead on authenticity.

Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of online platforms to generate income or publicity to increase the awareness of a brand, event, product or service. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, blogging sites, social bookmarking sites, social news websites, video sharing websites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (Twitter). SMO is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) in that the goal is to drive web traffic, and draw attention to a company or creator. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites.

SMO is used to strategically create online content ranging from well-written text to eye-catching digital photos or video clips that encourages and entices people to engage with a website. Users share this content, via its weblink, with social media contacts and friends. Common examples of social media engagement are "liking and commenting on posts, retweeting, embedding, sharing, and promoting content". Social media optimization is also an effective way of implementing online reputation management (ORM), meaning that if someone posts bad reviews of a business, an SMO strategy can ensure that the negative feedback is not the first link to come up in a list of search engine results.

Short-form content, also known as short-form video, is a short video, or short section of a video — often made from various sources such as movies (both professional and amateur), shows, or entertainment videos — that is uploaded to the Internet via video sharing platforms such as YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Vine, and Facebook Reels. They are popular among young people, especially those of Generation Z and Alpha, building a part of Internet culture.

Short-form content gained some popularity in the 2010s before becoming more popular in the 2020s, especially with the creation of several short-form media platforms. Most short-form content, and short-form videos, today are commonly found as video clips uploaded in the vertical format and are up to a few minutes long (e.g. three minutes maximum for YouTube Shorts content as of 2026). Such content can contain snippets of videos taken out of context and made as memes, and can also be used to attract the public to the uploader's other accounts or their long-form content.

TikTok food trends refer to popular recipes and food-related fads on the social media platform TikTok. These trends amassed popularity in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people spent more time cooking at home while engaging with social media for entertainment.

Food-related content on TikTok is often categorized under the hashtags #TikTokFood and #FoodTok. These hashtags have amassed 4.6 million and 4.5 million posts, respectively, according to the platform. Some TikTok users share personal recipes and dietary habits, while others use step-by-step cooking videos to grow their online presence.

The online video platform TikTok has had worldwide a social, political, and cultural impact since its global launch in September 2016. The platform has rapidly grown its userbase since its launch and surpassed 2 billion downloads in October 2020. It became the world's most popular website, ahead of Google, for the year 2021.

The TikTok Billboard Top 50 was a music chart published weekly by Billboard in the United States. It ranked the most popular songs on the social media platform TikTok in the United States based on a combination of total creations, video views and user engagement on the platform. The chart premiered on September 14, 2023, with the song "SkeeYee" by American rapper Sexyy Red at number one. The longest-running number-one song on the chart was held by "Million Dollar Baby" by Tommy Richman, which stayed at the top for ten consecutive weeks. The chart was officially discontinued on March 7, 2025, lasting for only 18 months since its premiere as an official Billboard chart.