Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at PSU chapter.

In a post-Vine world, much has failed to fill the empty void Vine has left Millennials and Gen Z with. Sure, Vine compilations are great, but there’s nothing quite like infinitely scrolling through an app filled with hilarious, educational, and touching content. 

Hands holding phone
Oleg Magni on Unsplash

Thus, TikTok was born in 2016 in China. Later, the app was launched to the international market in 2017. 

But, TikTok did not originally become the iconic, insanely popular app it is today. TikTok merged with the similar app, Musical.ly later in 2017. Shortly after, TikTok began to top the charts of app stores in many countries.

 

Now, TikTok is by far the most brilliant app to exist, in my opinion. There is hilarious Vine-like content, music, dancing, pop culture, emotional moments and much more. TikTok is breaking barriers for what it means to be an app, because it does not have one sole purpose like Instagram or Twitter. 

 

Yet, many older members of Gen Z and young millennials put on an act in terms of TikTok. Though we all know they are secretly yearning to join the TikTok community (cult) and spend their days watching people doing variations of the “Renegade” dance or makeup looks inspired by the movie “The Year Without Santa Claus,” many people still deny themselves the human instinct of being addicted to TikTok.

 

So, I am here to ask those people: What makes you different? Didn’t you like Vine? Ok, so what is wrong with using Vine’s younger (and better) equivalent? 

Sure, I understand TikTok gets a bad reputation of being for young kids, but I promise there are plenty of college students on TikTok — and even a lot of Penn State students who are TikTok famous. But, I think I would probably still end up on TikTok for way too long every day, even if I were the literal only college student using it.

 

I don’t think there is anyone on this Earth too cool to use TikTok. If we all unite, we can realize that TikTok will solve (maybe, actually probably not) many world problems and is only here to brighten our lives and benefit us. If that doesn’t convince those who act like they are above TikTok, it’s literally just one minute-long Vines. If that isn’t persuasive, then I don’t know what is.

Becky is a junior at Penn State studying digital/print journalism and French. She is a staff writer for Her Campus and also the lifestyle editor at the Daily Collegian. Becky is a member of the Penn State Thespian Society, and also is a committee member on a THON OPPerations committee. In her free time, she can be found listening obsessively to various broadway cast recordings (her favorite at the moment being Hadestown) or watching old episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race.
Allie Bausinger is a Penn State University graduate who majored in Print/Digital Journalism with a minor in English. She is from "outside Philadelphia," which in her case is Yardley, Pennsylvania. Allie is looking for full-time employment in writing, editing, fact-checking, podcasting, and other areas of the journalism and writing fields.