In her “Cinema Year Zero: Tik Tok and the Grammar of Silent Film” article, Caroline Golum enlightens us on how Tik Tok, the social media which has been getting bigger and bigger everyday since 2018, is rooted in early cinema: just like Thomas Edison, Georges Méliès and the Brothers Lumière in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the so-called “Tik Tokers” create short and entertaining “moving pictures”, which are usually between 3 seconds and a couple minutes long videos that merge popular dances, viral sounds and texts on screen.
Golum then points out how Tik Tok creators use the same film techniques that were used in early cinema, such as pantomime and subtitles; many funny viral trends on Tik Tok also requires its creators to edit their videos using the stop motion technique, which is actually one of the first film techniques ever created. Just like early films, Tik Toks are a form of entertainment that is available to anyone, even to people who do not actually have an account on the platform; there is one difference though: in the early 20th century audiences used to collectively enjoy watching motion pictures, meanwhile now people, especially teenagers, watch Tik Toks individually.
Thanks to Tik Tok, (almost) anyone can become either a filmmaker or a celebrity: in her article, Golum mentions how Addison Rae, a Tik Tok creator who gained popularity since she started posting her dancing videos a couple years ago, starred in the 2021 film “He’s all that“, a remake of the famous 1999 teen comedy “She’s all that“. Rae’s story may be similar to Gladys Smith’s one, who was the oldest daughter of Charlotte Smith, a young widow with three children: Gladys, professionally known as “Mary Pickford”, got her first role when she was only seven years old and after ten years she joined Thomas Edison’s Biograph Studios.
