TikTok’s user base definitely skews young. That’s where the youngsters hang out, after all. Famous musicians, A-list celebrities, major companies, and institutions like the Washington Post, World Health Organization, and United Nations are all on TikTok now.

You might know it as the musical duet app, where users lip-sync to songs side by side on video, but it’s grown to be much more than that. And it’s definitely a sort of successor to Vine, with a similar concept: short looping videos that tend to be heavy on music and visual effects, or pranks and skits garnering millions of views. Coincidence? It’s definitely interesting timing! The Rise of TikTokĪll kidding aside, TikTok has exploded in popularity since it launched internationally in 2017.

Originally released in China, TikTok launched in September 2016 – and Twitter killed Vine barely a month later. So how did this odd little niche app reach an incredible 1 billion downloads in its first year? Who’s using it, and why? And how does it compare to its main competitor, Snapchat? Let’s take a look! Can you believe TikTok has only been around for a few years? The video-sharing app now rivals Snapchat among the younger crowd, with no end of bizarre lip-syncing montages, comedic shorts, and challenge videos uploaded every day.

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