Launched in 2016, TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social networks, instantly recognizable around the world for its colourful logo with a singular musical note. The iconic logo has remained largely unchanged since its inception, with only a few tweaks. In this article I would like to explore this app’s history and try to find the reason for its popularity.
The history of TikTok began in 2016, when the Chinese company “ByteDance” launched the application called “A.me”, which allowed users to create and share short videos. Three months later, it was renamed “Douyin”. In 2017, ByteDance began expanding Douyin outside China under the name TikTok. Later that year, ByteDance acquired “Musical.ly”, a similar short video app based in Shanghai with offices in Santa Monica, California. Musical.ly allows users to record lip sync videos and has a solid user base in the US. ByteDance integrated some of Musical.ly's features into TikTok and used the acquisition to expand the app's availability in the US. At first, the logo was just a simple note, but in 2017, when ByteDance launched TikTok globally, the company decided to add the app’s name to the logo. Also, originally, the app name was two separate words: Tik Tok. The thing is, many large companies undergo relatively large rebrands as they gain initial success. For example, another popular social media app called “Instagram” has had quite a lot of logo changes. But the designers behind the TikTok logo understand they don’t need to fix what isn’t broken—the logo has been working well for them from the beginning. TikTok’s logo is really easy to remember and recognize. The colourpalate was inspired by the contrast between the darkness of an arena and the lights on the stage—hence, the black core and bright colour palettes surrounding the central music note. But why did this app become so popular? The answer is simple – the shortness of videos. Compared to creating content on other platforms, TikTok requires the least effort: in order to create a video you just need to open your camera and record a short clip! While for some people this might seem as a lazy way to create something, it is actually genius. In order to view a video on the platform you need just a few seconds and you can easily move on to another video in a simple flick of a finger. But is this a good thing? Is it a good thing that viewing all those videos does not require any thinking at all? Well, it is up to you to decide, our dear reader.
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