The TikTok shop has ruined TikTok: From short-form comedy clips to an e-commerce abyss, TikTok proves that consumerism will always be on top

Vine and TikTok: Short-form Focused

When TikTok first started getting wildly popular in 2019, online comedy connoisseurs shed a tear. Quick, hilarious content became obsolete with the shutdown of Vine in 2017. If you’re unfamiliar with Vine, the app was a video hub, much like TikTok, but its gimmick was that videos would have a runtime of six seconds or less. In an era that was rapidly growing out of iFunny-esque comedy and memery, the app was a massive success when it launched in 2013. Soon, memes such as the well-known “Look at all those chickens” and “Hi, welcome to Chili’s” cascaded into our eardrums and blessed our eyes with some fresh and experimental content. Though short, the videos had and continue to have a lasting impact on internet comedy and inside jokes from what one might deem a simpler era.

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Specifically during that period in 2020 when the world stopped moving completely, folks took to TikTok to share their quarantine recipes, silly dances, and aesthetic vlogs all in 15 seconds or less. With nowhere else to go, users around the world felt a sense of connection that they were lacking in their personal lives. Fellow commenters became friends and our phones became the only way to stay in the know—But this was all before, what some would call, the beginning of the end.

Amazon Storefronts & the Creator Fund

Consumerism crept into the DNA of TikTok well before they launched their shoppable feature, but the TikTok Shop exacerbated an already-oversaturated algorithm with consumerist content. If one was scrolling through their “For You” page over a year ago, a video of a fashion creator might pop up with the caption, “Check out my Amazon storefront at the link in my bio”. Content creators soon realized that they could profit off of folks pleading and begging to know where they got their sweater, jeans, or phone case, so they would create an entire Amazon page so viewers could shop like them (and of course, they got a cut of the sum).

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Before this, TikTok introduced the Creator Fund in 2020 to help viral users profit from their popularity. The new project focused on giving creators a certain amount of money per 1,000 views, based on an RPM (Revenue per Mile) model. The RPM of any individual creator’s content is also calculated using playback time, percentage of videos watched in full, and what TikTok considers authoritative, quality content. As a result, an uptick in longer content emerged, likely so any given creator can boost their RPM and in turn, boost their profit. One could infer that short-form content became more obsolete as the years went by in part because of this.

Launch of the TikTok Shop & Oversaturated, Shameless Advertising

When the shop finally launched, it seemed like users worldwide were very excited. After all, creators were already pushing consumerism through their videos, embedding the urgency of a “shop now, worry later” mentality. With that kind of narrative, folks were jumping at the opportunity to shop in-app rather than search in a forest of their favorite influencer’s Linktrees to find what they were wearing in their latest hit video. This excitement was very short-lived (much like the mass frenzy of enthusiasm when short-form came back).

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A little over three months after the launch, criticism of the shoppable function trickled into the conversation. One creator, @jessssiebrady, observed that her “For You” page was overtaken with advertisements and not-so-gentle pushes toward consumerism. She states that this type of content was being handed to her “every third video” on her page and that it created an overwhelming urgency to consume, consume again, and enroll in Afterpay or Klarna. While scrolling through TikTok at any given moment, you’ll likely be bombarded with advertisements for other e-commerce sites, too, that further push a consumerist agenda. Maybe, this was TikTok’s plan all along. Vine perished because they refused to sacrifice what everyone had loved about the app, and TikTok did not want to join them in the same perished fate.

Everybody loved Vine because it offered quick comedy, pushed little to no advertisements, and its creators did not obsessively promote shoppable items. Ironically, the reasons why users adored the app were the catalyst for its imminent shutdown. To be fair, the implementation of a shoppable feature allows creators to have a secondary avenue for income aside from their run-of-the-mill day jobs. With costs of living rising everywhere, it’s difficult to be too harsh about this. Many influencers also suggest products that aren’t necessarily useless, but one might have a hard time believing that every product pushed upon them is a must-have. After all, TikTok is not the only app that has been pushed in the direction of e-commerce. It’s just a shame that what used to be an app dedicated to comedy, is now turning into Amazon Lite. This begs the question: Can we ever have entertainment without mass consumerism? If you’re looking to find out more, there are plenty of good reads on the TikTok shop that you can check out (don’t worry, they give first-time shoppers plenty of coupons).