How the app became a meme
TikTok is called the international version of the Chinese service Douyin, which launched in 2016. The international version came out in 2017, and in 2018 the app was merged with the Musical.ly service, after which its audience outside China grew noticeably. According to analysts, TikTok was one of the most downloaded apps in the App Store in the first quarter of 2018.
Jokes appeared alongside the popularity. The earliest of them and the author of the collage are not known, so the first publication cannot be named. It is only known that the first notable interest in the topic dates to 2018.
What the picture shows
The image is divided into eight vertical strips, each with the portrait of one person. Some are smiling, others look serious, one wears glasses, another has bright makeup, and one man in a suit and red tie holds an old camera up to his face. At the bottom center is the logo: a stylized note and the word TikTok.
The general idea of the collage is that the platform gathers many different people on one screen. Who they are and where the photos come from is not clear from the picture itself, and for the joke this does not matter: the logo works as a frame and the faces as a backdrop. The people in the portraits are not named, and it is better not to build captions around them.
What the laughs are about
The typical situations in this meme relate to the feeling that the app pulls you in. You open it for a minute and close it three hours later. The feed guesses your tastes so precisely that it becomes uncomfortable. The same track plays in dozens of videos in a row. People easily recognize themselves in these situations, so the humor rests on self-irony rather than mockery of anyone else.
A separate theme is trends and dances that quickly turn into a mandatory program. The joke that everyone is doing the same thing works precisely because the frame contains many different people united by a single logo.
Caption examples
Invented captions built on different techniques.
“I came in to check notifications and left three hours later with a new hobby.” A time jump: a short action collides with a long consequence.
“The algorithm showed me the same dance for three weeks, and now I'm its most loyal viewer.” The roles swap: the person pursued by the feed becomes its most devoted fan.
“I searched for a borscht recipe and the feed offered me a frying pan.” An unexpected recommendation collides with an everyday task, and the coincidence seems too precise to be random.
“I told myself: just one video. Forty-five videos later.” The arithmetic of self-deception: the number at the end makes the joke specific.
How to use the template and where to stop
Captions about time, recommendations, favorite songs, and trends work well. They concern behavior rather than appearance and are understood by anyone who has ever scrolled through a feed.
It is not advisable to tie a caption to specific faces in the collage or to comment on their looks: these are photos of real people who happen to be in a row of portraits under the logo. For the joke it is enough that the logo itself and the feeling of a feed made up of many different faces remain in the frame.
If the caption is long, it is better to place it above or below the collage so it does not cover the faces and the logo: the logo in the bottom center stays the main recognizable element of the template.
