TikTok is a webpage that consists of short videos relating to a large variety of many different topics. TikTok came originated as the app, “Musical.ly,” which was later bought and turned into TikTok. This app began to gauge a large audience during COVID-19 due to quarantine and everyone having more time on their hands. People began to blow up on TikTok which turned into jobs for them. Teenagers were quickly becoming famous on the app for dancing which resulted in jobs for many people.
These teenagers who were gaining recognition on the app had their lives completely changed in weeks. They went from being average kids to having the whole world watching their everyone’s moves and making comments on their every decision they make. This has a major effect on the mental health of these young influencers. People commonly tell them that they chose this lifestyle when they didn’t necessarily. Just like other teenagers, these kids downloaded the app for fun and to post videos for their friends, however, when a social media personality blows up they’re not thinking about the amount of hate they’ll receive. One of the main people to blow up on TikTok during this time was Charli D’amilio.
On the Hulu show, The D’amilios, one of the main topics is mental health. They show how Charli, and her sister Dixie are both majorly affected by their audience on social media. When it comes to people behind a screen they can be a lot more harsh because there are no repercussions to their actions. The girls talk about how they have always struggled with anxiety but once they got more consumed in social media it became worse as more eyes got on them. Dixie had a mental breakdown because of how the media would talk about her and she struggled with viewing these negative comments obsessively.
After viewing this show, it made it more clear to me how TikTok and social media can affect young girls. Especially because of society’s standards and how they show up on social media. When it comes to women people are already more critical as is and being in the public eye makes it worse.