The Political Pundits of TikTok
In a sense, these TikTok users are building short-form TV networks, each with a cast of talking heads. On TikTok they’re called hype houses, named after the high-powered influencer collab house in Los Angeles. These political houses are not physical homes, but virtual, ideological ones represented by group accounts.
There are conservative-leaning houses (@conservativehypehouse, @theconservativehypehouse, @TikTokrepublicans and @therepublicanhypehouse, which amassed more than 217,000 followers in under a month) and liberal ones (@liberalhypehouse, @leftist.hype.house). There are also bipartisan houses, for users who love discourse, and undecided houses, for those who aren’t sure what or whom they love.
“I do feel like TikTok is cable news for young people,” said Sterling Cade Lewis, 19, who has nearly 100,000 followers. “CNN and Fox and big-name news media, those are all geared toward people who have honestly grown up with a longer attention span.”
TikToks, on the other hand, run a maximum of 60 seconds; most videos are as short as 15. “Being able to make shorter videos and educational clips, it’s easier to connect with a younger generation who’s just swiping through their phones 24/7,” Mr. Lewis said.
Though they disagree on major issues, members of different political groups frequently engage with each other. Their videos often go viral when they “duet” on major issues. (Duetting is a feature on TikTok that allows users to respond to videos with videos of their own and post them side by side.)
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/style/tiktok-politics-bernie-trump.html