A Thread about TikTok's long goodbye
How the app changed fashion and culture
Hi everyone. How are you? This weekend I was thinking about all the luxury brands who must be freaking out after Instagram’s new grid dimensions decimated their carefully cropped feed. You know those posts went through SO many rounds of sign off…*
It’s kind of funny/ tragic how reliant we’ve become on third party platforms - myself included! - and how they can so easily upend our best laid plans. Speaking of which, I had an interesting discussion about the TikTok ban with a friend’s girlfriend this weekend (before it got un-banned).
For context: she’s Gen Z, I’m a Millenial. She said she was glad the ban was going through, and that it was “one less thing to worry about”, as far as addictive tech platforms go. I’m not sold on the addiction argument - sobriety rarely succeeds by simply taking away the drugs. Most people get clean once they’ve reached a place of genuinely wanting to, not becuase someone flushed the stash. We’re already starting to see the inklings of this: the growing trend for in-person events and conversations around ‘touching grass’ suggest a genuine desire to spend less time online.
Since I began writing this, TikTok has been banned, revived, and now sits in a state of purgatory, awaiting its long-term fate. Whatever the outcome, the response suggests that things will never go back to how they were. Even if the app is restored, the age of innocence is over, and with it, the carefree silliness that characterised TikTok 1.0. Creators and brands are already feeling jaded by the rollercoaster, and they’ll be fearful to go all-in on an app now they’ve experienced its impermanence first hand.
Gone or otherwise, I’ll be sad to bid farewell to the raw, authentic nature of TikTok’s halcyon days. In his seminal 1967 book, ‘The Medium Is The Message’, media theorist Marshall MacLuhan’s argues that the way we consume content affects the meaning of the content itself. “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us,” he says.
TikTok is a perfect example of this. The app’s chaotic UX and unpredictable algorithm ushered in a return to randomness and the absurd, at a time where Instagram was feeling increasingly uptight. It’s not a coincidence that Brat was such a hit - we’d spent years rehearsing for it on TikTok, being messy and performative.
I’m not suggesting that the app is perfect by any means. But from a fashion point of view, I’ve loved watching new creators come up on the platform. People like Lyas and Dara (listen to them on the Threads of Conversation podcast here and here), and
, founder of the 75 hard style challenge. I felt geniunely emotional watching Rian Phin’s goodbye video, in which she says: “making a TikTok was the best decision I’ve ever made in my entire life. And every single year since I started on here has been the best year of my life.” (Luckily, you can also follow her philosophy-inspired fashion commentary over on Instagram and YouTube.)
As someone who’s been in the industry for nearly two decades, it’s been refreshing to see the birth of a new generation of both critics and fans, ones who used TikTok to tunnel their way into fashion’s rigid establishment.
The offbeat humour that thrives on TikTok has also added more of a surprise and delight factor to brand communications. A big part of LOEWE’s success has been its ability to synthesize the TikTokification of culture with its wider marketing strategy. On socials, they leaned in to the digitally native language of TikTok, often handing over the reins to creators to perform content in their signature style (examples here, here, here and here). Loosening the strictures of ‘luxury’ and not taking themselves too seriously has been a permission slip for other brands to do the same, and the industry is more fun as a result. (Jacquemus also deserves some credit for this.)
On the upside, I won’t miss the cringeworthy trend pile ons (hello ‘demure’), and the manic way we cycled through fake fashion aesthetics like office siren, coastal grandma and the like. I also hope the Personal Style Industrial Complex will finally calm down. But still, I don’t think these issues can be wholly attributed to TikTok. Rather, they’re symptoms of bigger problems in the fashion industry, especially as it enters its corporate monolith era (‘not you in your corporate monolith era’…), something I wrote about here.
Speaking of the business side, Substack-writer-turned-Puck-correspondent Sarah Shapiro reported on the effect that the TikTok ban would have on the US’ nascent livestream shopping market (live stream shopping is a more modern, elevated version of QVC-style shopping channels, sometimes referred to as ‘social commerce’ due to how it found a home on social platforms).
In an article titled ‘Is TikTok’s Live Shopping party about to get unplugged?’ Shapiro says: “As the fate of TikTok looms, one second-order effect could be the death of the micro-economy surrounding its Live Shopping feature… Live Shopping allows customers to view up-close product videos and ask questions in real time. The product detail pages are also much more effective than what other social platforms offer. The sales power of Live Shopping is hard-earned, and profoundly underappreciated in the market.”
It’s hard to feel misty-eyed about the loss of another avenue for people to buy more stuff (especially when most of the clothes I’ve been shilled via TikTok have been waist-snatching polyester wrap dresses and poorly-made activewear). That said, purchasing habits are a petri dish for culture at large, and people buying products is what keeps the industry afloat. Plus, TikTok has been a win for the little guys, with over seven million small businesses in the US using the app.
The growth of Live Shopping on TikTok represents an interesting shift in consumer behaviour. For years, the western fashion industry was trying to get live shopping off the ground. But for customers in the USA and Europe, it took a while to click. Tech-wise, it never quite found the right home, and both brands and shoppers didn’t see it as a ‘luxury’ way to buy. TikTok really changed this, familiarising both consumers and brands with this method of shopping. Shapiro reports that growing US live shopping market is currently at $50 billion in the USA, comparative to China’s nearly $700 billion.
Of course TikTok isn’t changing for everyone - the world, and TikTok’s user base, is much bigger than the USA. But this incident will have a wider ripple effect. In his recent newsletter,
discusses the mass adoption of RedNote, which many ‘TikTok refugees’ have joined instead. “America is that girl. We are the entertainment, we are the trendsetters, the bellwether: where we go, the world follows,” he wrote, citing users from Canada, Mexico, the UK and Europe who are following suit, despite TikTok remaining as normal in their region.What’s happening with TikTok is also another example of an overall splintering of social media, whereby users are becoming more like nomadic tribes (see also: the rise of Bluesky, and niche social platforms like Perfectly Imperfect’s PI.FYI and Dazed’s Dazed Club app). We’re no longer wedded to a single platform, instead becoming habituated to a new culture of constant relocation in smaller groups.
For brands - in fashion and more widely - this weekend’s events serve as a reminder to pull focus on the channels where they make the rules. I see this manifesting as follows:
More IRL activations: dinners, talks, parties, ‘touching grass’-adjacent activities. Also more stunts in real life locations, per the Severance pop-up at Grand Central - things that can be experienced and talked about via word of mouth (great for brand lore) and disseminated via multiple third party channels (social media, legacy titles, newsletter writers).
Doubling down on newsletters. Whilst some brands have joined Substack, I think that instead of building on a new platform, brands will begin to incorporate Substack-isms into their existing CRM comms. This means more voice-y, casual communications that read like a piece from your favourite Substack writer, rather than an advert in your inbox.
And perhaps, finally, social media managers might get a day off? I’ll leave
be the judge of that.*you can realign your content by clicking the three dots on the post, but I feel bad for the social media managers who probably spent their weekend re-cropping an entire feed…
Have you listened to the Threads of Conversation podcast? You can find it here, or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe below for more Threads of Conversation, and follow on Instagram and TikTok.
Threads of the week
Wearing a lot of the pieces I talk about here. The skirt (worn over the pants) is from Ader Error - I got it on Vinted for £27.
Loose Threads
I’m excited to read the new edition of Viscose Journal. I’ve made a new resolution to read magazines as soon as I buy them, as I’ve realised that if I don’t, they immediately join the unread-pile-of-ornamental-magazines-I-never-quite-get-round-to-reading.
I’m more of a The Selby girl than an AD aficionado, but I completely loved Paloma Elsesser’s house tour. It looks like she actually lives there, and I’m inspired to do more days eating pizza and reading books (or maybe chipping away at the unread-pile-of-ornamental-magazines-I-never-quite-get-round-to-reading)
Speaking of the unread-pile-of-ornamental-magazines-I-never-quite-get-round-to-reading, a 2024 regret was not reading Tavi Gevinson’s amazing Taylor Swift fanzine. Luckily, I got to read her interview on
instead.Did you know that stylist Lotta Volkova has been working with Miu Miu since 2020? You can see her subversive energy in details like the SS24 bandaged toes and the suggestive hair muss of AW23. She’s just released a new book, titled ‘everyth!ng’ featuring pole dancers wearing Miu Miu AW24. This is a great example of ‘edgy’ projects that counterbalance Miu Miu’s more commercial endeavours, creating the tension that keeps the brand winning.
A trio of my dream Threads of Conversation guests. Watch this space…
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What are your thoughts on the whole TikTok situ? Are you on RedNote? Or have you been out touching grass? Let me know in the comments.