Tiktok stole our hearts, but can it last?

Zoë Schiffer: Booktok made me immersed in the Romantasy world. Now I am unable to read normal literature. Thank you.

Lauren Goode: I’m going to assume that romantasy is romance and fantasy?

Zoë Schiffer: Oh, it is. Dragons There are fairies, there are dragons. I am not proud of this, but I suppose I am not proud of it either.

Lauren Goode: Wild.

Michael Heat: Lauren, you have to spend more time on Tiktok.

Lauren Goode: I know. Zoe, this is a whole side of you who did not know how my podcast cohost. I respect.

Zoë Schiffer: Yes, generally not dealing, I will be real.

Michael Heat: Lauren, what is your favorite video?

Lauren Goode: A friend sent me the girl in the moth.

Moth girl (file audio): Two years ago, I found this giant moth sitting on my entrance path.

Lauren Goode: Its Tiktok management is Talalvesyouart. But she is the girl in the moth.

Moth girl (file audio): … with scared wings of me.

Lauren Goode: Actually, as Tiktok was about to be prohibited and my friend was going crazy. She said: “Beautiful creators like this cannot reach the public.”

Moth girl (file audio): But I had no idea what I was about to get.

Lauren Goode: I was crying a little. There were onions in the room. It was really beautiful. And you, Mike?

Michael Heat: My favorite Tiktok personality is SMAC, SMAC.

Sarah McCreanor (file audio): I don’t know why you followed me, it was probably for dance or whatever.

Michael Heat: Sarah McCreanor is an Australian interpretive dancer and a comedian and creative person. It is also known as Hydraulic Press Girl because it took the videos of the viral hydraulic press crushing things and made interpretive dances of them.

Zoë Schiffer: Oh my God.

Michael Heat: With costumes that are incredible.

Lauren Goode: Wow.

Michael Heat: She is great.

Zoë Schiffer: Honestly, creativity in Tiktok is quite unmatched.

Lauren Goode: It really is.

Michael Heat: Too bad everything is disappearing.

Zoë Schiffer: Aw.

Michael Heat: This is Wired’s Strange ValleyA show about the people, the power and influence of the Silicon Valley. I am Michael Caloroe, director of Consumer Technology and Culture here in Wired.

Lauren Goode: I am Lauren Goode, I am a senior writer in Wired.

Zoë Schiffer: I am Zoe Schiffer, Wired Business and Industry Director.

Michael Heat: Today we are talking about Tiktok. What makes this application so unique and so unique vulnerable? We all have our favorite Tiktok personalities, and our favorite videos and our favorite subsections. But what is Tiktok, really? Where does it come from? When do we begin to become obsessed with that? And why are we so obsessed with that?

Zoë Schiffer: The short answer is that Tiktok is an application of Chinese social networks that has around 170 million monthly active users in the United States. And specifically, a lot of young people. It really has a strangulator on generation Z specifically.