By Monika Jiang

“Sheesh” has become a global trend on social media, and it all started with this frog video, though the word (“used to express disbelief and exasperation”) actually dates back to the 1950s.

Whether you knew this or not, no one can really escape social media these days. It’s our ultimate parallel reality that mirrors—painfully honestly—what’s going on and wrong in society. So if you choose to understand the world better, and yourself, there’s no way around learning how to use it—and using it more intentionally. We can’t remain passive, uninformed users of feeds constructing our reality. Instead we need to educate ourselves better on how it works, what works on it, and how we can combat the many true problems of social media, from fake news to trigger warning content. Bottom line: social media needs new business models not built on advertising. Until we’re there, let’s take a look at one of the multi-billion-dollar platforms that promise to lead a new wave of social media, maybe.

TikTok!

Before you roll your eyes and say “sheeeeesh,” hold on. There’s a reason TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms across 150 countries, with 1.1 billion active users who are no longer all teenagers (in fact, teenagers currently make up about a third of users). TikTok has become one of the top five platforms consumers use to follow brands, whereas only about one-third of marketers (34 percent) currently leverage the platform. Singing, acting, and dancing trends aside, although notably entertaining and arguably creativity-enhancing, there are other ways of becoming more literate through TikTok that are worth considering.

Relating to politics: Let’s face it, we’re all susceptible to the echo chamber effect, whether on social media or IRL, because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Learning how to relate to the other in order to build empathy, as Maryanne Wolf pointed out, is crucial to grow as human beings and to uphold democratic societies, particularly in regard to younger generations whose global voter turnout is trending alarmingly downwards. TikTok is helping make politics “relatable, funny, and understandable, but also more memorable,” writes Ninke Boshuizen in Medium Magazine. Given its organic content algorithm, political activists in Southeast Asia, for example, were able to reach a much wider audience range globally, amplifying protesters’ voices in Thailand and Myanmar to call for democracy and end military dictatorship.

Including minority groups: No other platform has managed to allow such an unruly mix of people the license to become creators and go viral with something they love, however weird, niche, or nerdy. For example, people with disabilities or rare diseases are much more represented in your “fyp” (“for you” page, your main feed on the app) compared to other platforms, giving people like Imani Barbarin a voice to have “uncomfortable conversations” about discrimination against people with disabilities, white supremacy, and ableism. In light of yesterday’s Juneteenth celebration, it’s also worth mentioning that creators like Kahlil Green, a history major at Yale who studies social change and social movements, are educating people about overlooked or “whitewashed” history involving the Black community. “You can make a video and millions of people can see it within a day,” he said. “That reach is something you’re not going to get anywhere else.”

Challenging beauty standards: One of the current one-billion-views trends on the platform is #midsize. Known also as in-betweeners, mid-size people have been advocating for more representation in retail, the fashion industry, and media. So far, very successfully, achieving overall positive resonance.

It’s all evidence of grassroots demand for more topics to be discussed more proactively and much more openly, and TikTok is an unparalleled facilitator in that respect. Any technology that helps us as individuals and businesses meet people where they really are can’t be wholly net negative.

Finally, if you do need one more reason to brush up your social media literacy while sticking to good old books, there’s #booktok. Just sayin’!

Monika Jiang is the Head of Content and Community of the House of Beautiful Business, a global community for making humans more human and business more beautiful.

This article is an excerpt from the Beauty Shot on “Literacy”: to read the full newsletter issue and receive all future ones, subscribe here.

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