[News]TR10: The Unique Beauty of TikTok's Recommendation Algorithm for 2021

[WilkerCSBD]

What? In the great year of the TikTok app, these algorithms were the secret ingredient that put it ahead of its rivals.

Why? She changed the rules about who can get famous online.

Who? TikTok.

When? Already.

57-year-old special education worker Deven Karpelman would never have installed TikTok had it not been for the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. And of course she never expected to become famous there. But this app knows how to reward good content with visualizations, highlighting new creators in front of a wide spectrum of users. This is how Karpelman, who started making videos to avoid the boredom of confinement, ended up with 327,000 followers, many of whom are half her age.

In one of her groundbreaking July videos, Karpelman, known as @tequilaanddonuts, recreates the makeup styles she used to wear in the late 1970s. Her wavy white hair, which normally falls around her face like a granny , appears attached and collected in something like a false crest. She covered her face with white powder, painted her eyelids black, and put on a thin line of dark lipstick. The video cuts out there, and when Karpelman reappears, she shows the "groomed-out face" of her. The black eyeshadow has spread all over her face and into her eyes, as if someone had painted her face with a broad brush.

After sharing this makeup experiment, the video appeared on the strategic section of hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok - the "For You" page. The woman didn't understand why this particular post was suddenly so visible, it was TikTok's recommendation algorithms that decided it.

Die of success

Since the launch of TikTok in China in 2016, this app has become one of the fastest growing and most engaging social media platforms in the world. It has been downloaded more than 2.6 billion times worldwide and has 100 million users in the US alone The unique way it finds and delivers content is much of its appeal.

For most TikTok creators, the "For You" page is what sets this app apart from other social media platforms, because anyone can become famous on it. Good content is rewarded faster, thanks to algorithms that show users an endless stream of videos tailored to their tastes. While other social media platforms favor viral content with mass appeal, TikTok's algorithms have proven especially adept at connecting creators with specific communities that share the same interests, hobbies, or a specific identity.

The chances of a video ending up on the "For You" page are determined, among other things, by the text, sounds and hashtags it contains. And just like any other social media platform, what TikTok chooses to show us depends on how we use the app: what videos we liked, what content we created. The difference is that TikTok does it better than other apps.

It's easier for creators who are already po[CENSORED]r to get noticed, but TikTok doesn't take into account the number of followers or a creator's viral history when deciding which content to highlight and where. That's why the "For You" page combines viral hits with new videos from unknown creators, some of which have only a few views.

Over time, TikTok's algorithms improve when it comes to guessing what its users are interested in, not only offering videos about the interests they already have, it also takes them to new spaces that overlap. (A viral video presented the TikTok communities as a treasure map: to get to the world of Frog TikTok, you had to leave Straight TikTok, find your way to Stoner Witch or Cottagecore, go through Trans and Non-Binary, and "go through the portal to reach the promised land ").

Karpelman started making makeup videos after some teenage users tried to give her lessons on the aesthetics that she had lived so intensely. When we spoke on Zoom in December she told me, "[They were] trying to teach me about hardcore and, you know, how to be alternative. And I thought, 'Oh honey, you didn't invent sin.'

Currently, videos of her appear a lot in communities dedicated to LGBTQ + and mental health issues and recently she garnered an audience of college women, she notes. Her followers say that her Karpelman has the "energy of a grandmother", which is the distinction that she Karpelman has relied on, although she has sometimes wanted to avoid it as well.
 

The challenges
Last year was an interesting one for TikTok - just as its cultural relevance exploded, it also started to face some challenges. India banned the app and the Trump administration threatened to do the same unless TikTok's Chinese parent company severed all ties. (The threat was not carried out).

TikTok has had to post more information about how its algorithms work, in part to address security concerns about its property, and rivals like Instagram, Snapchat, and Triller have accelerated their attempts to copy what triggers the recommendations of TikTok are so good.

At the same time, the platform has been forced to reckon with its growing role in amplifying disinformation, and many black creators have pointed out that racism and harassment are disturbingly prevalent on this app.

For Karpelman, TikTok allowed him to connect with strangers during that difficult and lonely time, but the fame created has brought his own concerns. His followers have asked him for help with serious mental health problems and interpersonal conflicts. Sometimes they want more than Karpelman thinks he can give.

His experience in working with students is very helpful: he sets limits and helps young followers learn to defend themselves. His recommendations include: "Let's Google. Let's see the address of your institute. Oh, there seems to be a psychologist in the whole district. I'll help you write an email. Send it to me, I'll check it and send it to you. back, and then you forward it to these people. We'll have to prove it. "

But Karpelman has found another way to connect with such young fans: talk about what they have in common. In a video, he demonstrates how he pretends to be on the phone to avoid a particularly heavy salesman in a shopping mall. The creator concludes: "There were many children who said, 'I had no idea that adults have these social anxieties,' and that surprised me quite a bit. Children just don't understand that older people are human."