The TikTok app is the biggest 2020’s fever and no one can deny it. It was launched in 2017, becoming extremely popular in 2019. According to a statistics portal called “Statista”, the recent social media now occupy the fourth place in the list of the most used social networks this year in the entire world. It only loses to Facebook, that is the most popular one, Youtube, in second place, and Instagram, occupying the third position. With the quarantine period, in which people stay more at home, the popularity of TikTok is increasing even more.
The app is a tool that allows users to record videos up to 60 seconds. It offers editing resources, such as filters, legends, songs, gifs and paths, to release the creativity of their users. TikTok has been responsible for launching a lot of new artists, songs, dance moves and a lot of types of new influencers. It’s a social media that gives voice to many kinds of people and connects mostly with the young ones. For these reasons, some accounts are finding in TikTok a way to discuss social issues and spread them.
Racism, sexuality, feminism, fatphobia are some of the problems that society faces and are present in the app. Fortunately, these subjects are more and more being discussed, and profiles like Erika Affonso, Bruno Boer, Paula Teponti, Everton Machado and Rafa Courbassier are examples that can prove this. Her Campus Casper Libero talked to them and now you can discover more about each one of them and about their desire to make social issues become more visible. Get to know this new generation of a “TikTok consciousness” on the list below!
- Erika Affonso (@erikaaffonso) – “Art is a way to express yourself politically”
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Erika Affonso is a brazillian black woman who talks about race on the platform. She makes videos to exalt black people, expose the prejudices that those still suffer in our society, besides acclaim curly hair, characteristic of black people. She told us that she doesn’t start making videos to discuss these subjects, but that they were becoming natural for her. “I was joking in the app, doing lip syncs – something that I love – and humor videos. But two months ago I thought: why don’t speak more about me and things that I face?”.
Erika recorded two videos about her black hair, more specifically about how to do straight hairstyles in curly hair. They became viral and she started to talk about racism, still mixing it with the humor content that she loves. “My goal with my videos is that people wake up for social diseases and realise more about the world we live in”, says. She seeks to bring information enough to help people learn more about racism and the big problems it causes: “It’s the same thing I do in life, I was always close to social movements and it’s equal in the app”.
Erika alsos exalts the relevance of social media and how it can impact the world positively: “I believe that the internet englobes a lot of people and this is a fast way for people to have access to these social issues”. She also says that her followers always send messages saying that she warned and helped them to better understand and change some problematic behaviors. “Art is a way to express yourself politically”, she asserts.
Erika talks about racism in an easy way that includes everyone, and it’s definitely a great account for you to follow.
- Bruno Boer (@obrunoboer) – “People with a closed mind are seeing more that different people exist and are gaining space”.
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Bruno Boer is that kind of person who enters social media to stay. He got in TikTok in the beginning of the quarantine, doing choreographies and things that most people were doing. But soon he realises that those things do not represent him. “I saw some people I know gaining visibility, and I started doing lip syncs about self esteem and even some videos encouraging people to ‘forget about men’”. With that, Bruno was becoming more known and decided to include in his contents social discussions.
“Some day I recorded a video about how people related masculinity to virility and courage, and posted before sleep. When I woke up, the video had more than five thousand likes”, he says. After that, Bruno gained an audience that was interested in hearing about sexuality questions. He likes to explain using easy terms and in a basic way to achieve all the realities and bring them to the movement. For those who are closed minded, he says: “They are being obligated to see that more different people exist and are gaining space”.
His followers trust him and also see Bruno as a support. “I have received messages from, since kids, to married women telling me that they discover their sexualities through my videos”, he told us. Besides that, Bruno says that even though his profile helps those people, he also searches to warn followers to seek specialized help, such as therapy. “I already search websites of therapy to indicate, and I have the will to close partnership with some psychology network to promote my followers free consultations”, he affirms.
“I always bother a little with the lack of communication I have with my Instagram followers and, in that point, TikTok has been a good way to communicate with them on a major scale. This comforts me a lot”, ends.
Bruno is pretty charismatic and we are certain that you are going to be addicted to his content.
- Paula Teponti (@paulateponti) – “People criticized TikTok for being a ‘teen social media’, but this is amazing because they are our future”
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Paula Teponti is an avowed feminist that uses her profile to talk about male chauvinism and show her followers that beliefs in the speech that “women are less” are still present in our society. She started to make jokes about this subject and, suddenly, she realized that she was receiving a lot of misogynist comments on the videos. So, she decided to transform the humor in a critical way about feminism. “I was creating a sort of debate when I realized things were getting more ‘serious’”, she states.
Paula also does a lot of live sessions on the app with people who talk about different social issues, and says that this is a really important way to communicate important topics to her followers. They always debate and, according to the tiktoker, many teenagers come to her with doubts. “There’s a lot of people trying to better understand things and I already make men change their minds about some prejudices”, claims.
She says that TikTok is the perfect platform to bring social subjects. Instagram is more serious and Youtube is a complexive way to make and post videos, while “TikTok allows me to publish practical, fast and small videos about feminism. And I have always been creative, funny and militant, which combines with the proposal of the app”. She also receives a lot of messages from girls saying that her content is inspiring and clear. “People are able to see themselves in my content, this is a nice thing”, says.
Paula also emphasizes the fact that so many people judge TikTok for being a “teen social media” and that this is a wrong thing to do: “People criticized Tiktok for being a ‘teen social media’, but this is amazing because they are our future”. She claims that it’s important to bring social discussions even more because everyone is on the internet nowadays, especially young people, who are in the learning phase of life.
It’s definitely a good profile for you to start following right now.
- Everton Machado (@evertonmachado.oficial) – “We can have fun and also express a reflexive message”.
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Everton Machado is a doctoral student in education at The University of Bahia, and was exactly this topic that made him go viral on the app. After this, he started to suffer a lot of racist attacks and decided to bring this discussion of race to the platform. “I started to think of TikTok differently, as a way of creating anti racist content”, he says. He wanted to use the communication platform to make it a reflexive channel: “There, we can have fun and also express a reflexive message to the followers”.
“Also, a lot of times we pass for a racist situation and both parts don’t even know that it was racist”, says Everton. “With a short video, we can reflect better on this stuff that happens day by day”. He believes that has a giant impact because of the thousands of people that acces his content. “However we do not reach a consensus, when we make ourselves available to think on these topics is already pretty positive”, ends.
Everton’s profile is an essential content that everyone should follow.
- Rafa Courbassier (@rafacourb) – “Social media is the best way to do this, speaking in education and reaching people”
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“One day I recorded a video about feminism goals and it has a reach that I wasn’t expecting”, says Rafa Courbassi, graduated in psychology, who is pretty engaged in feminine subjects. She started to see the platform as a way to bring discussions about sexuality, misogyny, fatphobia and also psychology as women impact. Her goal is to make people aware of these social topics and help in their deconstruction, always with true and good information.
“I believe social media is the best way to do this, speaking in education and reaching people”, says Rafa. “If one single person changes their mind because of my content, it is already a big advance in the fight for a better society”. She says that she receives a lot of messages from people saying that her videos inspire them and make them search more about the topics she talks about.
It’s a diverse content for both boys and girls to follow on Tiktok!
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The article above was edited by Helena Cardoso.
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