10 best movie reviewers on tiktok

10 Movie-Review TikTok Accounts to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the only website for movie reviews anymore; many are heading to TikTok.  TikTokers have plenty to say on new and old movies alike — the hashtag #moviereview has over 932.7 million views. If you’re a movie-lover, a brand looking to work with movie buffs or an influencer hoping to step into film reviews, there are plenty of opportunities to share new and exciting content on TikTok .

10 movie-review TikTok accounts to watch

Madi Koch, or Madi Moo as she goes by on TikTok, has created an audience of 3 million film buffs with her movie reviews. She’s been invited by brands like Netflix to see and review new films before they come out to the public. If you’re looking to work with a film reviewer or you want to focus your own TikTok around movies, check out Madi’s videos.

@maddikoch THE LIE. Spoiler posted ! #movierecommendation #movie #moviesuggestion #movieclip #scarymovie #moviescene ♬ original sound - Maddi Moo

Cameron Kozak

Dubbed “Your TikTok Movie Guy,” Cameron Kozak on TikTok has built a following of almost 790,000 followers by sharing his movie reviews. Most of his videos share a scene from the film with his own voiceover giving his opinion, like this one in the movie, “ Encanto ,” or this one about what he’s looking for in the “ Batman” movie. Don’t worry, though — Cameron always lets you know if he’s giving away any spoilers so the film doesn’t get ruined for you!

@kodak_cameron Come back every week for a new mystery waiting to be solved, stream POKER FACE today! only on @peacock streaming now. #pokerfacepeacock ♬ original sound - Cameron Kozak

J Buck Studios

With 393,000 followers, J Buck Studios is another favorite film and movie review TikTok account to work with or follow. Equipped with sarcasm, J Buck gives fun, in-depth movie reviews on new films and some of his favorites. He’s even started a YouTube channel where he can give even longer reviews on upcoming films.

@jbuckstudios Did you know this about Clue? #cluemovie #clue #moviedetails #jbuckstudios #jbuck #eastereggs ♬ original sound - JBuck

TikToker J Stoobs (aka Megan) shares in-depth movie and comic reviews with her 420,000 followers. She’s even worked with brands and gone to the red carpet event for the new “Batman” movie. Megan also dives into social injustices and likes to show scenes from movies to help change the conversation.

@jstoobs Also it’s genuinely funny as hell #tv #movies #girls ♬ original sound - stoobs

Let’s Watch That

With 173,000 followers , Let’s Watch That is another TikToker sharing movie reviews, but this channel has a slight focus on horror films . Love ‘em or hate ‘em, horror movies have quite the following and this TikToker shares her feelings on the horror films you should watch despite their bad reviews. If horror films aren’t your thing, don’t worry — she also throws in movies that will boost serotonin levels .

@letswatchthat The Pale Blue Eye is on Netflix now #fyp #newmovies #review #film #thriller #christianbale #harrymelling #thepaleblueeye #filmtok #letswatchthat #films2023 #2023 ♬ Chopin Nocturne No. 2 Piano Mono - moshimo sound design

Cinema Nation

Cinema Nation is a group-run TikTok about all things movies and television. They’ve grown their following to almost 150,000 other movie lovers with their in-depth movie reviews and letting their followers know which movies to watch out for in the upcoming month .

@cinemanation It’s About Drive. It’s About Power. #fyp #blackadam #dc #movie #moviereview #filmtok #cinemanation #greenscreen ♬ original sound - Cinema Nation

Muny Rags, a Toronto-based TikToker , is a movie writer and director who likes to not only give reviews, but show his followers why certain aspects are important in filmmaking. He also likes to show films that aren’t brand new and even explains why props are important in films. Muny Rags’ unique take on film reviews has helped his TikTok grow to almost 80,000 followers.

@muny_rags #smilemovie #smilemovie2022 #horrormovie #movieanalysis #filmanalysis #learnontiktok ♬ Smile - Lily Allen

Anime and movies are two genres that sum up Cinemonika on TikTok. If you’re looking for anime movie recommendations or funny skits on popular TV shows, Cinemonika has plenty of short TikToks for you to scroll through. While she only has about 16,000 followers on TikTok, you can also find Cinemonika on YouTube with a subscriber base of 138,000. Her YouTube videos show even more in-depth recommendations on anime movies she recommends.

@cinemonika the most wholesome show i’ve seen in a while 🥹💗 #themakanai #netflix #netflixrecommendation #tvshow #japanesetvshow #koreeda #hirokazukoreeda ♬ End Theme of “The Makanai” 舞妓さんちのまかないさん エンドテーマ (feat. キヨ) - Yoko Kanno

With just under 18,000 followers on TikTok, Vidz by V is an 18-year-old filmmaker who shares movie and TV reviews. Because of her love for filmmaking, she has a unique take on watching films and TV shows. She even did a roundup video on what she believes were the best films of 2021 .

@vm_b Just some of my fav films #film #filmtok #movies #spidermannowayhome #animatedmovies #marvelmovies #filmtokers #movieindustry #movietoker #gonegirl #ladybird #intothespiderverse #midsommarmovie #jojorabbit #womeninfilmmaking #womeninfilm #tiktikboom #andrewgarfield ♬ Boho days from tick tick boom Netflix - JameCur

Lindsay Shannon Joyner

Lover of all things film, Lindsay Shannon Joyner shares relaxing reviews of movies with her 25,000 followers. As a “film fatale” as she calls herself, Lindsay joins in on different TikTok trends to share 50 films set in the 50 states and even film ideas to watch on a first date .

@filmlinds movie tag! 🎞️✨ #a24 #filmtok #movietok #moviereview #everythingeverywhereallatonce #greenscreen ♬ sarahs movie tag - sarah ! 🦕

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Maddi Koch loves to spread the gospel about a good movie. Her favorites are little-noted thrillers with few stars but juicy concepts or dig-your-nails-into-the-sofa plot twists.

On TikTok, where Koch has three million followers (and goes by Maddi Moo), her review of “ What Happened to Monday ,” about a dystopian world where seven identical sisters share a single identity, has drawn over 24 million views. “If I were to die tomorrow, I’d watch this tonight,” she raved.

Koch, who is a senior at Virginia Tech and is sometimes paid by film companies to promote their work, says she makes videos to connect people and to spare them “the pain of arguing over finding a movie or not knowing what you’re really looking for.” (Most of her videos, including the “What Happened to Monday” review, are not sponsored.) When asked, she’ll describe herself as a “random girl” who loves movies, a “content creator,” or, sure, even an “influencer.”

But one title that she would never use might be the most obvious: “Critic.”

“I just don’t see myself in that light,” she said.

Koch, 22, is among dozens of personalities on TikTok, along with peers like Straw Hat Goofy and Cinema.Joe , who reach millions of people by reviewing, analyzing or promoting movies. Several earn enough on the platform — from posts sponsored by Hollywood studios (many have taken a break from working with them since the actors’ strike), through one of TikTok’s revenue sharing programs or both — to make their passion for film a full-time job, a feat amid longstanding cuts to arts critic positions in newsrooms.

But the new school of film critic doesn’t see much of itself in the old one. And some tenets of the profession — such as rendering judgments or making claims that go beyond one’s personal taste — are now considered antiquated and objectionable.

“When you read a critic’s review, it almost sounds like a computer wrote it,” said Cameron Kozak, 21, who calls himself a “movie reviewer” and has 1.5 million followers . “But when you have someone on TikTok who you watch every day and you know their voice and what they like, there’s something personal that people can connect to.”

On MovieTok — as the community is known — the most successful users generally post at least once per day, with videos typically ranging between 30 and 90 seconds. Many attempt to capture the viewer’s attention within the first three seconds (“This movie’s perfect for you if you never want to sleep again,” begins Koch’s review of the hit horror film “Barbarian”) and speak directly to the camera, with screenshots from the film in the background.

Many creators, most in their 20s or early 30s, specialize within a particular niche. Joe Aragon ( Cinema.Joe , 931,000 followers) is known for his breakdowns of coming attractions; Monse Gutierrez ( cvnela , 1.4 million followers) and Bryan Lucious ( stoney_tha_great , 387,000 followers) demystify and rank horror films; Seth Mullan-Feroze ( sethsfilmreviews , 256,000 followers) leans toward art house and foreign cinema.

Unlike film departments at major metropolitan newspapers or national magazines, individuals on MovieTok generally don’t aspire to review every noteworthy film. And while most expressed admiration for traditional critics’ grasp of film history, they tended to associate the profession as a whole with false or unearned authority.

“A lot of us don’t trust critics,” said Lucious, 31. He was one of many who pointed to the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, where the scores of “Top Critics” often differ widely from those of casual users, as evidence that the critical establishment is out of touch. “They watch movies and are just looking for something to critique,” he said. “Fans watch movies looking for entertainment.”

MovieTok creators are not the first in the history of film criticism to rebel against their elders. In the 1950s, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and other writers of the journal Cahiers du Cinéma disavowed the nationalism of mainstream French criticism. In the 1960s and ’70s, the New Yorker critic Pauline Kael assailed the moralism associated with Bosley Crowther, a longtime movie critic of The New York Times, and others. And movie bloggers in the 2000s charged print critics with indifference or hostility to superhero and fantasy films.

“There’s always this denigrating of those so-called ‘other’ critics as somehow elitist and old-fashioned while presenting yourself as the new avant-garde,” said Mattias Frey, head of the department of media, culture and creative industries at the City University of London and the author of “The Permanent Crisis of Film Criticism.” He defined criticism, by any name, as “evaluation grounded in reason,” citing the philosopher Noël Carroll.

Juju Green, a 31-year-old former advertising copywriter, sees himself as on a “mission to combat film snobbery." Known as Straw Hat Goofy , Green is the most prominent member of MovieTok, with 3.4 million followers and an emerging side career as a correspondent and host. His most popular video , in which he identifies Easter eggs in Pixar movies, has nearly 29 million views.

Seven years ago, Green started a movie-themed channel on YouTube — which favors longer, more produced videos — but abandoned it after the birth of his first child. On TikTok, he found that he could reach an enormous audience with relatively little effort. He said one of his first videos on the platform, a post from January 2020 about Tom Holland’s performance in “Avengers: Endgame,” received over 200,000 views in about an hour.

“I had a feeling like I was meant to do this,” he said. Green quit his advertising job last year.

Without the salary of a news organization, MovieTok creators earn money by partnering with entertainment companies. A sponsored post promoting a film or streaming service can be worth anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000.

Green’s clients have included Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros., among others. In January, Universal paid him to create a post at an N.F.L. game promoting the movie “M3GAN” that received nearly seven million views — part of a marketing campaign that helped the film earn $30.2 million in the United States and Canada on opening weekend, about 30 percent more than box office analysts had predicted.

It is impossible, of course, to make a direct link between TikTok influencers and ticket sales. But there are signs that the impact can be considerable. Sony executives have cited MovieTok campaigns as one reason for the strong performance of “Insidious: The Red Door,” which cost $16 million to make and has taken in a surprising $183 million worldwide.

Being paid by the studios presents an obvious conflict of interest. Creators may be reluctant to speak negatively about the products of a company that pays them (or might). While traditional news organizations, including The Times, sell ads to movie studios, they do not allow critics, reporters or editors to accept compensation from them and generally keep editorial and business operations separate.

Carrie Rickey, who was the film critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1986 to 2011, said she refrained from working too closely with studios to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.”

“It would mar my reputation as an independent writer,” she said.

Many on MovieTok have evolved an ad hoc code of ethics — accepting payment only for trailer announcements or general recommendations, for example, rather than true reviews — but recognize accusations of bias as an occupational hazard.

“I always try to be super transparent with my viewers,” said Megan Cruz ( jstoobs , 535,000 followers), noting that she is careful to identify gifts and sponsorships in her videos. “We do exist in this in-between space and I think it’s important to clarify whenever you’re getting any kind of advantage.” (By law, paid endorsements on TikTok must be labeled; but gifts, including swag boxes and travel to red carpet events, are not always disclosed.)

Cruz, 34, echoed other MovieTok reviewers who said they dislike doing sharply negative posts and would be unlikely to slam a movie whether they were in business with the studio or not. She said she generally prefers to deliver negative opinions in the form of a “compliment sandwich,” preceded and followed by more positive remarks.

“It pains me to say that this movie, by and large, did not work for me,” she said, in a review of the horror-comedy “Renfield.” Cruz then added: “There are a lot of individual elements of this film that really do work.”

Another source of income is TikTok itself. Since 2020, the platform has shared revenue with accounts that meet eligibility requirements. Gutierrez said that between sponsored posts and payouts from TikTok she has made as much as four times the salary of her previous job as a substitute teacher.

After Hollywood actors went on strike in July, many creators stopped working for the studios in solidarity. SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, issued guidelines for influencers last month discouraging them from accepting “any new work for promotion of struck companies or their content.”

Green, who had previously implied that he would continue working as usual, subsequently walked back those comments. He said in a recent interview that he had turned down eight proposals to work with struck companies and would continue to do so for the duration of the strike.

“It was a mistake that I made and I completely own that,” he said.

The lack of Hollywood work has prompted many creators to pivot to other subjects, such as independent films and anime.

But with or without the studios, those interviewed for this story said their obsession with dissecting movies would remain.

“I like to call it professional overthinking,” Green said.

Brooks Barnes contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a philosopher who formulated a definition of criticism. He is Noël Carroll, not Carrol.

How we handle corrections

Reggie Ugwu  is a pop culture reporter covering a range of subjects, including film, television, music and internet culture. Before joining The Times in 2017, he was a reporter for BuzzFeed News and Billboard magazine. More about Reggie Ugwu

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10 Horror Movies That Are Popular Among TikTok Users, Ranked

Some great ones here.

When it comes to horror movies , a lot of the time, I’ll watch a new one based on word of mouth. I gave the Ari Aster horror movies a shot at first because I heard how scary they were. I watched all the Halloween films based on my mom’s recommendation. I even checked out some goofy horror comedies because my friends told me to try them. Many horror movies I’ve come to love were brought to my attention with recommendations. 

In 2020 I discovered a new way of getting these suggestions: TikTok. Of course I found myself on the horror side at one point, and I have now been led to some fun movies – and others that aren't so much fun. Here are ten horror movies I have to talk about – ranked from worst to best.

10. Skinamarink (2022)

No. Just no. 

Skinamarink is what is classified as a Canadian experimental horror film that primarily follows two children who are left at home alone, and that’s really all you know. At first, you may think this is a good premise to follow, but the movie is so boring. 

I get who this movie is trying to go for – most of the shots are weird sounds and long shots of dark spaces. It’s supposed to appeal to those scared of the unknown and what could emerge from the dark. But Skinamarink is the slowest, non-horror filled horror movie. Even when there were jumpscares, they did not feel earned. You could tell from a mile away that they were coming. 

I get why some people might think this is a revolutionary film , but it’s not for me. 

9. Megan Is Missing (2011)

Megan is Missing came out when found footage horror movies were starting to get popular again (during the Paranormal Activity era), and the film itself got quite popular on TikTok in 2020. But I have to say, there’s nothing really surprising about it in any way. 

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The main premise is about a teenager who meets a boy online and decides to meet with him, and ends up going missing, hence the title. We are given several interesting scenes that are supposed to terrify, and to other viewers, sure, they could be scary. But for someone who is so used to found-footage horror movies, this movie did nothing for me. 

8. Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Okay, hear me out – I freaking love this movie. Jennifer’s Body was one of my favorite movies when I was just getting into horror, whether it be because it was a little campy, or Megan Fox ’s performance, or even Amanda Seyfried . But I don’t think it deserves to be considered horror. 

If you need a reason to check out Jennifer's Body, here are five for you.

The movie started to make the rounds again on TikTok in 2020/2021. The film follows the title character, Jennifer, who gets possessed by a man-eating demon after she is sacrificed by her favorite band in the woods. The film itself is so much fun and I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it, but certainly not the best horror film that TikTok has put on my For You page. It’s more funny than scary. 

7. Hush (2016)

Mike Flanagan has become a master of horror with some of his most recent films and TV shows, and this movie furthers that. Hush, starring Kate Siegel, tells the story of a deaf woman who has to survive a home invasion. 

This movie isn’t gory in any way, but what makes it better than the others is that it’s so creative. I mean, think about it – we always think that we’d survive any horror movie like the Scream franchise because we have all five of our senses, but just imagine if you had to survive a home invasion while deaf. 

That’s terrifying – but Flanagan takes it a step further and really integrates the viewer into the experience because you feel as if you’re the one being chased. The sound design is great. 

6. Tusk (2014)

This is a weird-ass movie. But I like it.

Tusk is a horror comedy directed by Kevin Smith and starring Justin Long about a podcaster who ends up getting more than he bargained for while conducting an interview with a retired sailor who is creepier than he seems. This A24 horror movie is strange as heck, but it works in a weird way. 

I have to say that I do like it much more than many of the other horror movies before this. It doesn’t try too hard to be scary, and really embraces its hilarious aspects. It almost reminds me of M3GAN – it knows exactly what it is and isn’t trying to fool you. It’s just so weird. 

5. The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

Another documentary-style horror movie, The Poughkeepsie Tapes also got popular around 2020/2021, and is about the fictional murders of a serial killer in Poughkeepsie, New York, which features “interviews, footage,” and material that is obtained from the serial killer – basically, his snuff films. 

While I would also categorize this movie as a found-footage horror movie, The Poughkeepsie Tapes actually feels quite scary. There are several gory moments that made me turn away from my screen, and others that had me quite interested. It’s not the best found-footage movie, but interesting enough.

4. Excision (2012)

Moving onto another horror film, Excision came out in 2012 and boy, this movie is something different. It’s about a young girl who has dreams of working in the medical field, but she isn’t quite right mentally and has a weird fascination with blood – so much so that she’ll do anything to get it. 

This is one of those movies that I literally could not look away from, and I was upset when it ended. The performances were great, and it really makes you squirm in your seat. Plus, you can see a young Ariel Winter literally acting her butt off in a horror movie. I can’t recommend this one enough. 

3. Begotten (1989)

That’s right, we’re going all the way back to the 1980s. Shot entirely in black and white, Begotten takes its story from several creation myths, focusing mainly on Mother Earth and the Son of Earth, who set out on a journey. 

This movie messes with your head, man. Where Skinamarink was an experimental horror film, Begotten is just on another level of experimental. You have no idea what the heck is going on and yet, you’re scared out of your mind. It’s creepy in all the right places and features some pretty gory sequences. Definitely a good pick. 

2. Antrum (2018)

This movie literally comes with a warning before it, saying you could be cursed watching it. Come on. 2020 was a year for horror movies – and it was easy to stream.

This both a mockumentary and a horror film, focusing on the story of the actual film, Antrum, and the horrible things it has done to people, and then cuts to the film so it can be shown to the audience. The plot follows a pair of siblings and their journey in the woods. It's full of eerie imagery and has plenty of horrible trials for the siblings, such as running into cannibals and demons. 

1. A Serbian Film (2010)

Yeah…this film. 

I discovered A Serbian Film (classified as an exploitation horror) in early 2022. The main premise follows a financially struggling pornstar who decides to work in an art film, only to find out later on that it’s a snuff film – and he’s going to be the star.

This movie…is disturbing. It’s been banned in several countries, and features heavy, heavy graphic violence. This was one of the first films in a while where, when it finished, I had to sit back and ask myself, “what the f*** did I just watch?” I felt dirty after watching it, disgusted almost. This is one of those movies where you certainly will never take your eyes away from the screen – but once it’s done, you never touch it again, which is why it’s number one on here. 

TikTok is great for many things, but horror movie recommendations? Kind of a 50/50 split on that. Either way, you might have found a new favorite film here. Or, maybe I gave you a million reasons not to watch certain movies. Whatever the case, have fun binging. 

A self-proclaimed nerd and lover of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, Alexandra Ramos is a Content Producer at CinemaBlend. She first started off working in December 2020 as a Freelance Writer after graduating from the Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in English. She primarily works in features for movies, TV, and sometimes video games. (Please don't debate her on The Last of Us 2, it was amazing!) She is also the main person who runs both our daily newsletter, The CinemaBlend Daily, and our ReelBlend newsletter. 

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‘TikTok, Boom.’ Review: A Documentary Looks at How TikTok Is Changing the World

The video-based app has won the eyeballs of a generation, but it's also a geopolitical hot potato.

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TikTok , the omnipresent video-based social-media app that launched five years ago, has always seemed a less serious, more frivolously youthquakey destination than a number of other online networking services — most obviously Facebook. Yet as Shalini Kantayya’s sprightly, informative documentary “TikTok, Boom.” makes clear, there are more levels to the TikTok phenomenon than there are to almost any other blockbuster app.

There are the countless people who consume it: the kids from all over the world who get addicted to watching the up-to-three-minute-long videos (dances, pranks, sexy flaunts, tutorials, monologues, protest messages) as if they were popping Sour Patch Kids. There are the people who are on it: the makers of those videos, who could be just about anyone and might be doing it just for kicks, though what a lot of them want to be, if they can go viral enough, are influencers — the elite echelon of TikTok stars who have made themselves over into brands, based on a look or a talent or a signature or some combination of the above, and who succeed in attracting the attention of companies who will pay them to be casual endorsers of some product.

The saga of TikTok doesn’t end there. The sheer hugeness of the app is its own paradigm-shifting story. It has been downloaded over two billion times, making it bigger than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter. As a result, it has shaken up the hierarchy of the tech universe. And since TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company based in China, the fact that much of what TikTok is actually about, once you peek beneath the candy-colored surface of its endless-shopping-mall-of-videos, how-I-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-dopamine-hit mystique, is data mining (the targeting of you , the user, as a consumer, who will be digitally read like a book and pitched products until your dying day), there are sizable geopolitical implications to the TikTok story. Does the fact that the data mined by TikTok is stored in a brain trust controlled by a Chinese corporation mean that the app, for America, represents a security risk? Some say yes. Beyond that, the fact that Silicon Valley, for the first time, has been beaten at its own game by China, America’s preeminent rival in the 21st-century global power structure, is its own kind of wake-up call.

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Not to mention this: What does it mean that the Gen-Z multitudes now spend obsessive amounts of time immersed in a never-ending digital casserole of content that is fast turning us into America’s Funniest/Wildest/Most Narcissistic Home Videos Nation?

“TikTok, Boom.” gives all those issues a workout. For anyone who’s not up on the story, or who has followed it with half a glance, the documentary, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, is a lively, handy TikTok primer. Yet there are ways in which it’s all too content to skitter along the surface of what TikTok is. That may sound like a paradoxical complaint — TikTok, after all, kind of is all surface — but I wish the movie had probed, a little more deeply than it does, into how an app like TikTok is changing our habits, our society, and maybe our souls.

Kantayya, the director of “Coded Bias,” introduces us to a handful of TikTok influencers, like Spencer X, the ace beatboxer who actually came up on YouTube (his first deal was with Nike); or Deja Foxx, who went viral when she was 16 years old by confronting Sen. Jeff Flake at a Republican town hall about the defunding of Planned Parenthood (the next morning, the video of their confrontation had 18 million views), and now divides her TikTok presence between political statements and showing herself off in a bathing suit; or Feroza Aziz, an Afghan American activist who found herself in conflict with TikTok over videos she posted in protest of Chinese detention camps. (At one point she does an end run around their algorithm by nestling her activism in the middle of an eyelash tutorial.)

There’s a let-it-rip, if-it-feels-good-record-it aspect to the TikTok experience; the app basically turns the whole planet into your bedroom mirror. Yet as “TikTok, Boom.” reveals, that spirit is belied by how much of the content is regulated. Douyin, the original Chinese version of TikTok (it was launched in 2016), has strict provisions that don’t even allow people to appear with tattoos or dyed hair. And though TikTok itself is obviously much looser, the film explores the phenomenon of “shadowbanning,” in which certain videos, due to algorithmic judgments that happen off the radar, are basically banned by not being allowed to pile up any views or likes. At one point it was discovered that anything with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter or #GeorgeFloyd had been shadowbanned, a shocking suppression that the company tried to explain away as a “technical glitch.”

But beyond such flagrant acts of censorship, the documentary examines the larger ethics of TikTok’s control of content. The tech writer David Ryan Polgar claims that “Major tech companies, if they have the power of deciding what’s okay and what’s not okay with what I say, if they have the power to de-platform…that puts a tremendous level of power in an unelected official.” He calls this “anti-democratic.”

The movie does full justice to the insidious implications of what TikTok does and does not allow. Yet given how much “TikTok, Boom.” looks askance at aspects of TikTok, the film still betrays a certain wide-eyed eagerness to accept and (implicitly) endorse the way that TikTok operates. It was back in 2015 that Zhang Yiming, the 38-year-old Chinese founder of Douyin and TikTok, introduced the idea of “recommendation engines,” which would create an intricate profile of the user and then show that user what he or she likes. TikTok has been compared to the Sorting Hat from “Harry Potter,” splitting its audience into niches, tailoring products to a micro delineation of their tastes. We hear testimony from TikTok users who express amazement at how totally the app “knows” them.

But does the app really know you? Or are its relatively crude sorting methods creating a crude version of you? That there is now a passionate desire on the part of consumers to have computer technology tell them “who they are” may say more about those consumers than it does about the all-seeing nature of the technology.

For scores of the Gen-Z faithful, TikTok turns everyday reality into a show. On the surface there’s no harm in that, yet we should increasingly be skeptical of it, especially when we’re encouraged to think that TikTok, through the very grip of its appeal, creates a place for people to “speak truth to power.” The movie plays up the moment when a TikTok user got the idea to reserve a ticket to a Donald Trump rally in Oklahoma and then not show up for the rally. Her gambit was imitated by scores of others, and it worked. At the rally, there were large sections of empty seats; Trump was infuriated; the denizens of TikTok had pranked the president.

Yet here’s the thing. If you believe that you’re speaking truth to power, but you’re doing it on a playing field where grabbing eyeballs and going viral is the yardstick of success, then the people who are hucksters and liars and political fantasists will always have a built-in advantage. Because lies can always be made to look more entertaining than the raw political truth. Only time will tell how TikTok is changing us, but in its very success the app could be a way of getting us to fiddle while the world burns.

Reviewed online (Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition), Feb. 3 25, 2022. Running time: 97 MIN.

• Production: A Campfire Studios production, presented by Olive Hill Media, in association with Forbes Entertainment, Such Content, 7th Empire Media. Producers: Ross M. Dinerstein, Shalini Kantayya, Danni Mynard. Executive producers: Rebecca Evans, Ross Girard, David Tomlin, Michael Cho, Mimi Rode, Tim Lee, William Rosenfeld, Robert Kapp, Randall Lane, Travis Collins.
• Crew: Director: Shalini Kantayya. Camera: Steve Acevedo. Editor: Seth Anderson. Music: Katya Mikailova.
• With: Feroza Aziz, Spencer X, Deja Foxx, Shelly Banjo, Emily Barbour, Matthew Brennan, Scott. R. Drury, Merrick Hanna, Shawn Hanna, David Jay, Aleysha Johnson, Taylor Lorenz, Rui Ma, Kyra Maxwell, Rick McElroy, David Ryan Polgar, Eugene Wei, Jason Zhang.

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The 10 Best Up-and-Coming Filmmakers to Follow on TikTok

Find filmmaking inspiration and advice by following these ten creative, up-and-coming filmmakers on tiktok..

As we’ve covered before, the filmmakers of tomorrow are on TikTok today . And, while that might seem frustrating (or, at least, odd) to many who have worked in the film and video industry for years, it’s necessary to understand that while the TikTok generation will undoubtedly create and consume content differently, it doesn’t mean that TikTok is going to immediately replace regular film and video production work.

Rather, the opposite is more likely to happen. These new generations of TikTok creators are simply using a different medium to help inform, learn, and grow their craft in film and video. Sure, they produce these vertical, sixty-second TikToks on their phones, but they also do some outstanding work with their DSLR , mirrorless , and cinema cameras , and can back it up with some phenomenal VFX work and editing .

So, for inspiration (or for market research), let’s introduce you to ten of the best filmmaking TikTok users you should absolutely check out and follow.

1. @Itschristinadobre

@itschristinadobre Do you want to be a filmmaker? ? #womeninfilm #Filmtiktok #filmmaking #filmschool #filmstudies #filmmakertips #filmcareer #filmmaker #cinematographer ♬ original sound – Illumitati ?

Starting with one of the best filmmaking creators on TikTok, Christina Dobre’s account is a peek into the life of a real filmmaker and cinematographer living and working in New York City. Dobre’s videos are a mix of industry advice and insights, with some amazing TikToks ranking film schools in different areas and helpful tips for being on set.

You can also see some of Dobre’s work as a cinematographer with some cool, behind-the-scenes videos that showcase what it’s actually like on set, if you’re still new to the biz.

2. @video_production_school 

@video_production_school By @chrisvtv #onsetlife #postproduction #lifeonset #setlife #cameraman #camerasetting #iphonefilming #videoeditors #directorslife ♬ original sound – www.FeelVisual.com

The second TikTok account on our list is as straightforward as its name implies. @video_production_school is an account dedicated to sharing “Tips, Knowledge, and more from the Film Industry.” It’s a solid mix too, as it shares clips from different creators, and scours the internet for cool, behind-the-scenes featurettes from some of your favorite cinema classics . 

The account also runs a YouTube channel with even more in-depth content.

3. @jrod.visuals

@jrod.visuals Sorry guys I haven’t had time to make stuff Cinematic! #cinematic #music #filmmaking #photography ♬ original sound – jerodyoung52

Moving along, jerodyoung52 a.k.a. @jrod.visuals is a cool, up-and-coming film and video TikTok account based out of Pueblo, Colorado. Jrod shares some well-made content directed towards those who are both fans of travel and filmmaking, as he offers unboxing videos, reviews, and general insights into his career in video production.

4. @filmmakersworld

@filmmakersworld Just dropped a super cool job of Priit Palumaa full post and breakdown on IG #filmmakersworld #filmmaking #filmmakinglife #virtualproduction #ledwall ♬ original sound – filmmakersworld

One of the bigger filmmaking TikTok channels out there, Filmmakers World has over 200,000 followers and 1.8 million video likes. It’s also a killer resource for live on-set videos and professional tutorials that should challenge your game and give you plenty of advice and inspiration.

Like many of these film and video production-specific channels, Filmmakers World is also on YouTube where you can watch the full versions of many of their videos and tutorials.

5. @thebetterpartfilm

@thebetterpartfilm Be sure to follow along as we make our movie!! #filmmaking #dailyvlog #filmmaker #film #filmtiktok #indiefilm ♬ Steven Universe – L.Dre

In a bit of DIY and guerilla marketing, the filmmakers behind their indie feature film The Better Part have actually put together and produced one of the best filmmaking TikToks out there. The Better Part Film channel is pushing almost twenty days of behind-the-scenes content detailing every part of their production cycle on their indie movie.

6. @entertaintheelk

@entertaintheelk “Coen Brothers: How to End a Movie” — See the entire video on YouTube. #filmtok #movietok #film ♬ original sound – Entertain The Elk

Along with behind-the-scenes peeks and features, TikTok is also a fantastic resource for watching video essays on film and television. Entertain the Elk is one of the best accounts for breaking down all the elements that make your favorite films and shows unique. 

From essays exploring color theory to details and trivia into some classic movies, it’s hours of entertainment and information worth checking out.

7. @joshvfx

@joshvfx Back with the vibes ☀️ #dance #edit #foryou ♬ Killing Me Softly With His Song (Remix) – Jd

Now we’re wading into the large and deep end of video editing and VFX TikTok. And, as you might imagine, the side of TikTok dedicated to mind-bending visual effects is quite fascinating and robust. My favorite VFX-specific account might be Josh VFX , who has 6.5 million followers, all of whom enjoy his flashy and creative animation and effects.

It’s not all just showing off, though, as Josh shares insights into how he creates his compositions and hones his craft both on TikTok and on his YouTube page .

8. @jessicahnsn

@jessicahnsn 3 Point Lighting?? #filmmaking #filmmaker #aputure #california #losangeles #cinematography #dp #lighting #lightingtips #film #director #filmtiktok ♬ original sound – Jessica Iliana

If you’re looking for an awesome film and video TikTok account that covers the widest variety of real world advice and insights, look no further than the one created by Jessica Iliana . Iliana’s page is chock-full of amazing content, breaking down lighting techniques and cinematography insights , as well as exploring tips and tricks for video editing .

Iliana also recently launched a YouTube channel , which you should 100% keep tabs on as it develops.

9. @mrejbaker

@mrejbaker #screenwritingtiktok #screenwriting #writingtips #writingtipsandtricks #filmtok #movietok #filmtheory #filmtiktok #movies #film #filmwriting ♬ Blade Runner 2049 – Synthwave Goose

Another multi-purpose film and video TikTok account, Elliot Baker’s @mrejbaker page is dedicated to a wide array of content covering films, theory , and filmmaking . Baker’s “quick list” format is a cool, bite-size type of video, giving you some extraordinary content crammed into the short TikTok format.

Follow Baker for these quick lists and some solid advice for screenwriting , film theory , and other video production elements.

10. @zachking

@zachking #behindthescenes ♬ original sound – Zach King

Finally, we wrap up with a familiar name on many short-form content lists, with the popular Vine-star-turned-YouTuber-now-turned-TikToker Zach King . King has built an impressive career with his highly creative and super technical visual tricks that launched his career years ago on Vine.

Now on TikTok, King keeps the hits coming as his stunts have become much larger and more complex, yet still contain that creative, fun style that’s made him so beloved. Enjoy the cool videos, but stay tuned for his behind-the-scenes explainers to really master his tricks.

Bonus: @SirWrender

@sirwrender look at this satisfying perfect fit ?? #oddlysatisfying #perfectfit #loop ♬ original sound – SirWrender

SirWrender (who you may know as Wren from the VFX channel Corridor Digital) has only recently started a TikTok, but his recent video (embedded above) has over 128 million views in just one week! He doesn’t have a lot of content at the moment, but keep an eye on his channel given his recent explosion in TikTok popularity.

For more TikTok insights and smartphone-centric filmmaking advice, check out these articles:

• A Brief Introduction to TikTok
• The Best Gear for Creating Your Next TikTok Video
• Editing in TikTok vs Instagram Reels – Which is Worth Your Time?
• 10 Basic Tips for Editing Your Next Viral TikTok Video
• The Top Mobile Editing Tools for Filmmakers on the Go

Cover image by  Razym .

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – TikTok, Boom. (2022)

August 31, 2022 by Shaun Munro

TikTok, Boom., 2022.

Directed by Shalini Kantayya.

With TikTok crowned the world’s most downloaded app, these are the personal stories of a cultural phenomenon, told through an ensemble cast of Gen-Z natives, journalists, and experts alike.

Coded Bias director Shalini Kantayya’s follow-up doc challenges yet another window of our increasingly algorithm-controlled lives; social media, and in particular the world’s most downloaded app, TikTok. Kantayya’s multi-faceted exploration of its benevolent potential and decidedly less-democratic reality make for a well-rounded film that thoughtfully considers the platform’s contentious place in the global stage without solely singling it out.

“On TikTok, anything can happen,” one of its users claims early on, and speaking as someone who hasn’t ever touched the app, it’s easy to appreciate the intoxicating appeal, especially for youngsters seduced by the democratising power – or implied power, at least – it gives them to reach an audience of billions.

With TikTok’s wider userbase and higher engagement rate than any other platform, silly lip-sync videos and political screeds alike can theoretically reach a global crowd within seconds. The speed with which its popularity has spread and impacted all manner of cultures is basically unprecedented.

Kantayya frames her film around the testimonies of several likeable young subjects described as “digital natives”; they’ve never known an existence without the Internet. There’s Afghan-American human rights activist Feroza Aziz, who uses the app to decry China’s internment of Uyghurs; beatbox artist Spencer X, who thanks to TikTok has become a millionaire; and political activist Deja Foxx, who parlayed her following into becoming the youngest staffer on Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

These industriously committed young people demonstrate the greatness that can be achieved with TikTok and apps like it, whether to entertain or open the eyes of millions to injustice. Yet for most it is, inherently, an exercise in branding, where even seemingly “regular people” can be paid exorbitant sums to promote brands, or even end up with a Hollywood career.

But TikTok’s global influence only makes the elephant in the room that much more urgent to explore. Despite its veneer of democratically-served content, the Chinese-created software uses its groundbreaking algorithm to read its users’ behaviours, gather data on them, and potentially even influence their future acts.

“Data is the new oil and China is the new Saudi Arabia,” we’re told at one point, and several of the subjects in Kantayya’s film persuasively suggest that TikTok is emblematic of China’s attempt to shift global power, economically and otherwise, effectively usurping America’s primacy on the global stage. This is transparently felt when Mark Zuckerberg, realising that Facebook wouldn’t ever be allowed to penetrate China’s Great Firewall, tries instead to chip away at TikTok’s domestic market share by any dirty means necessary.

And so, what may superficially appear to be a goofy app to post daft videos crowbars open a more widespread discussion about geopolitics, cybersecurity, digital biases, and the place of the algorithm in society.

On an interpersonal level, though, TikTok has far-reaching implications the extent of which we won’t fully understand for decades. Gen-Z is the first generation whose entire lives have been documented online, and Deja Foxx laments, “I don’t know a world where I’m not being received always.” She finds herself caught in a tug of war between desiring an empowering connection and decrying the toxic potential of any sufficiently large community.

There’s persuasive evidence that social media re-shapes its users’ brains, especially in an app as lightning-fast as TikTok, where a person’s mental development and understanding of the world can be moulded by algorithmic processes. Yet when so many become financially dependent on the exposure the app brings them, deleting it to stave off depression and burnout isn’t much of an option. Fox, who uses TikTok to pay bills for herself and her recovering addict mother, horrifyingly likens it to an abusive relationship.

The crux of Kantayya’s investigation centers around the app’s mysterious recommendation algorithm, which uses highly complex machine learning to decide which content to deliver you and also which sort of user you are. Numerous subjects report feeling like the algorithm is reading their thoughts, so brilliantly intuitive it is, which begs the question – what else is TikTok doing with all this information?

The business of data brokering isn’t exactly a secret to anyone paying attention to Silicon Valley over the last decade, but naturally there’s heightened concern when that data is being acquired and potentially sent outside of the U.S., where the implications of its use may be further-reaching. The prospect of a Chinese conglomerate like TikTok owner ByteDance amassing strategic profiles of hundreds of millions of people is valid cause for concern, especially with the patent lack of transparency over how that data is used across geographic lines.

Then there’s the matter of freedom of speech – or lack thereof, rather – where social media platforms as private enterprises are free to silence opinions counter to their interests. Feroza Aziz’s videos about China’s treatment of the Uyghurs eventually caused her content to be devalued by the algorithm, and so she made the creative decision to Trojan horse them inside eyelash curling tutorials instead.

Aziz’s account was ultimately suspended regardless, making global headlines all while she expressed frustration that the news media was concerned less with China’s interment camps than her maltreatment by TikTok. But as one subject demonstrates, the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, is orders of magnitude stricter, whereby piercing, tattoos, and even a bright hair colour can result in a livestream termination within seconds.

Social media isn’t a facsimile of society, but when TikTok’s leaked moderation guidelines detail extensive “algorithmic punishment” to LGBTQ+, disabled, and even “ugly” people, and there are also suggestions they de-platformed Black creators during crucial landmark moments in the BLM movement, then the implication that it’s a freedom-promoting platform quickly falls apart.

This troubling “curation” of people – that is, selective exclusion without merit – has the potential to re-order people’s worldviews and silo them within digital echo chambers without them even knowing, which on both sides of the political spectrum is surely not a good thing.

Such is the reality of modern life, where algorithms define so many basic aspects of our existence, and may well be determining our futures in ways we have no control over. And it will only get worse, especially with the slow-moving wheels of the legal system struggling to provide adequate regulation. After all, how can tech companies ever be trusted to truly show us how the sausage is made? How do we establish objective oversight, particularly with companies operating in untouchable territory?

This documentary is at once a fascinating and frightening travelogue of our new culture where online influence is currency, and people are becoming disconcertingly accepting of their personal data being not just sold but trafficked. And yet, perhaps the scariest thing of all is that, by film’s end I was left somewhat curious to give TikTok a try.

TikTok, Boom. insightfully explores the social media platform as both an innovative app for creative expression and one worth considering with a hardy sense of skepticism.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.

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forever winter notes

149 Movie Recommendations from Tiktok (if you don’t know what movie to watch next!)

Here are some fantastic movie recommendations I came across on TikTok that you won’t find on Netflix. However, if you’re more interested in Netflix movies, I have a dedicated blog post just for that – 159 Netflix Movie Challenge – follow this list and watch 159 NEW movies at the end of 2023 (Tiktok Recommendations) .

Just follow this list if you are not sure which movie to watch next!

• Triangle of Sadness
• Last Night in Soho
• The Break-Up (Jennifer Aniston)
• Obsessed (Korean)
• How to Be Single
• Bora Debora
• The Before Trilogy
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Just Like Heaven
• Interstellar
• Dead Poets Society
• The In-Between
• The Art of Racing in the Rain
• Better Days
• Forgotten (2017)
• The Apartment
• Shoplifters
• Hello Goodbye and Everything in Between
• Swarm (Amazon Prime)
• Fantasy Island
• Lost in Translation
• Nocturnal Animals
• Seven (1995)
• Heartbreakers
• The Northman
• American Mary
• The Invisible Guest
• The BFG (Big Friendly Giant)
• The Handmaiden
• The Godfather
• A Good Person
• Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23
• Donnie Darko
• Manchester by the Sea
• The Prestige
• Sleeping Beauty (2011)
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
• My Best Friend’s Movie
• Love, Rosie
• Ben and Kate
• Deep Blue Sea
• Chemical Hearts
• Life – Korean, Series
• Life Is Beautiful
• Ready or Not
• Vanished – Korean
• The Banshees
• The Dark Knight
• Oppenheimer
• Before Sunset
• Clouds (2020)
• Nightcrawler
• Good Will Hunting
• One Million Yen Girl
• Drop Dead Gorgeous
• All the Bright Places
• Scream Queens
• No Reservations
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
• Bachelorette
• Girl, Interrupted
• I Feel Pretty
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
• Someone Great
• Requiem for a Dream
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Youth of May
• The Babysitter
• The Grave of the Fireflies
• Predestination
• The School for Good and Evil
• Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
• Infinity Pool
• Little First
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Departed
• Beauty and the Briefcase
• The Maze Runner
• Decision to Leave
• Celeste & Jess Forever
• Schindler’s List
• The Pianist
• Paper Towns
• Sinkhole – Korean
• Django Unchained
• Serendipity
• Romy & Michele’s HS Reunion
• Dollhouse – Horror
• Oldboy (2003)
• Cinema Paradiso
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Ingrid Goes West
• A Simple Favor
• Wintersleep
• Beyond the Universe
• The Other Woman
• Murder on the Orient Express
• One Week Friends

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TikTok, Boom. Reviews

Shalini Kantayya’s TikTok, Boom. examines how that hugely popular platform—the most downloaded app ever—for makeup tutorials, skateboarding vids, lipsynching and other frivolities became a source of political controversies around the world.

Full Review | Oct 25, 2023

Such is the message of “TikTok, Boom”: You can run, but you can’t hide from the algorithms.

Full Review | Oct 21, 2022

If you only have a vague concept of TikTok as that thing kids use to post videos of themselves dancing, this essential documentary will leave you better informed -- and possibly alarmed.

Full Review | Sep 29, 2022

TikTok Boom has many valuable insights into the TikTok app, and the direction society and the social discourse are headed.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | May 11, 2022

What happens once audiences disappear down the rabbit hole of this documentary will depend very much upon how old they are.

Full Review | Feb 18, 2022

If theres anything new to be gleaned from Tiktok, Boom by those who are already familiar with everything presented, its a confirmation that although there is much to do, indifference has not yet settled in.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 13, 2022

While TikTok, Boom. might not be the most dynamic documentary, it is still a digestible film with substantial thoughts on the TikTok platform that are clearly worthwhile and important.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 12, 2022

It is always difficult to take on a story when were in the middle of it, and TikTok, Boom. by no means plays as a definitive study of all the platforms harms.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Feb 8, 2022

A new documentary centered around TikToks vast cultural and global impact that focuses on a more inclusive group of influencers whose lives have changed through the app and who intersect with the political.

Full Review | Feb 7, 2022

A lively, handy TikTok primer. Yet there are ways in which it’s all too content to skitter along the surface of what TikTok is.

Full Review | Feb 5, 2022

A clearer through-line...may have laid better groundwork for the films interrogation of the platforms relationship to geopolitics, gendered abuse online, and censorship, but, on the whole, its an engaging and compelling film.

Kantayya certainly covers the how and the why of all that but is mostly interested in the apps origin story and its future. Though I confess to not being a user, the movie feels comprehensive. Its also highly engaging.

Full Review | Feb 4, 2022

One can't help feel this is geared more toward outsiders than those who are already caught up in [TikTok's] attention beam and feeding into its algorithms.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2022

The problem with a documentary like "TikTok, Boom" is that its shelf life is as short as the app's. By the time this movie gets out to a general audience, it's quite possible that the next social-media platform will already be trying to replace it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 30, 2022

Much less focused, and therefore considerably less successful. Jumps around to different subjects, to the point of distraction

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 29, 2022

You'll certainly come away from TikTok, Boom. with a lot of talking points, but you might not feel like you've actually gained a deeper understanding of the platform itself.

Full Review | Jan 28, 2022

The doc addresses widespread ideas and experiences around the app, mostly with a helpful journalistic remove that avoids either scolding or gushing. As a primer, it's effective and absorbing.

Kantayya gathers about a dozen creators for her documentary, as well as about a dozen more talking head experts to put forth a pretty clear argument that TikTok is a terrible thing for our mental health, our personal data, even state secrets.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2022

TikTok, Boom. raises many pressing concerns about the power of TikTok and its lack of accountability.

Full Review | Jan 27, 2022

offers critical analysis on TikTok... but ignores the many nuances of the app. TikTok, Boom. is underwhelming.

Full Review | Jan 25, 2022

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‘tiktok, boom.’: film review | sundance 2022.

Shalini Kantayya's documentary examines one of the most influential social media platforms today, tackling issues of cultural influence, algorithmic bias, cybersecurity, geopolitics and more.

By Angie Han

Television Critic

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As noted in a voiceover near the start of TikTok , Boom. , there are so many through lines to be explored here: “It’s a cybersecurity story. It’s an algorithm story. It’s a bias story. It’s a geopolitical story.” Shalini Kantayya’s documentary tries, to varying degrees, to explore seemingly all of them. And if it’s perhaps too broad to serve as the definitive last word on the buzzy social media platform, it does at least make for a thoughtful conversation starter.

TikTok, Boom. is loosely structured around three prominent TikTok personalities: Feroza Aziz, an Afghan-American teen censored by the platform for speaking out on the Uyghur genocide; Spencer X, a beatboxer who found creative and commercial success on the app; and Deja Foxx, an activist and political strategist who founded the online community GenZ Girl Gang.

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Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Documentary Competition) Director: Shalini Kantayya

Woven around their stories are shorter appearances from other content creators (including one on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese counterpart) — plus interviews with experts like New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz and tech ethicist David Ryan Polgar, who provide larger context about TikTok’s history, its data-collecting algorithm, its effect on young people, its role in the cultural tug-of-war between the U.S. and China, and more.

The film’s wide view makes for a more complete portrait of TikTok than a more narrowly focused one might have offered, and possibly a more nuanced one. While TikTok, Boom. does not shy away from criticism of the platform, Kantayya seems no more interested in unilaterally condemning it than praising it. Instead, she takes the time to engage with a diverse array of voices and viewpoints, and consider the platform from all angles. Her open-mindedness gives TikTok, Boom. a sense of trustworthiness — it’s more interesting to process a sincere exploration than a pointed screed.

So for one content creator, TikTok might represent a “gold rush” of sponsorship opportunities, while for another, it might feel like a burden she can’t escape because it’s how she supports herself and her family. It’s what one creator calls a “blow-up-overnight kind of place” that can mint new stars overnight, and at the same time a restrictive space with internal policies that can silence the already marginalized. The For You Page is a groundbreaking feature that makes TikTok terrifyingly good at tailoring itself to a user’s specific tastes; what shady things it does with the information it gathers isn’t necessarily all that different from what every other social media site does with it, as documented in other projects like The Social Dilemma or Kantayya’s own Coded Bias .

Kantayya’s careful construction keeps the deluge of information from overwhelming the viewer. Often, it mimics the organic flow of a conversation. When one influencer vents, “‘The algorithm’ — what does that even mean?” the film cuts to a tech developer describing it as a sort of digital Sorting Hat, emphasizing the point with a clip from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone . That the film never seems to stay on one topic too long seems wryly appropriate for its subject; after all, no TikTok video lasts more than a few minutes either.

But TikTok, Boom. ‘s ambition of covering seemingly everything to do with TikTok in 90 minutes means that it rarely has time to dig beyond basic concepts. Much is made of TikTok being the first Chinese social media app to blow up in a tech landscape previously dominated by American companies, for example — but less clear is what this means for individuals who have no particular stake in the pissing contest between Mark Zuckerberg and Zhang Yiming, the Chinese founder of TikTok parent company ByteDance.

Its Gen Z subjects give chewy, sometimes slightly depressing soundbites about their ambivalence around social media. “I kind of have to live with fact that there’s gonna be people that are profiting off my data and I have no real recourse for that,” says one teenage user — the son of Scott R. Drury, a data privacy lawyer who speaks at length in the documentary about, among other things, TikTok’s failures to protect minors from child predators. Another young influencer muses that “I don’t know what it’s like to live in a world where I’m not being perceived, always.” But a deeper exploration about how those realities change their self-perception, or how it might shape their futures, remains outside of the film’s scope.

TikTok, Boom. feels not like a dispatch from the heart of TikTok culture, or a deep dive into the issues surrounding it, but an introduction meant for people who might be familiar with the app just in passing. It seems less likely to come as a revelation to people who are Too Online as it is (myself included, admittedly). As I write this, we’re just a few days removed from West Elm Caleb, the latest TikTok tale to go viral enough to inspire think pieces on what the whole saga says about TikTok specifically, about social media more generally or about the world more broadly. These are ideas worth grappling with, and TikTok, Boom. is helpful as a way in. But those most engaged in them may find that the discussion has already moved past what’s offered here.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Documentary Competition) Production companies: Campfire Studios Director: Shalini Kantayya Producers: Ross M. Dinerstein, Shalini Kantayya, Danni Mynard Executive producers: Ross Girard, Rebecca Evans, Travis Collins, Randall Lane, Michael Cho, Mimi Rode, Tim Lee, William Rosenfeld, Robert Kapp Director of photography: Steve Acevedo Editor: Seth Anderson Composer: Katya Mihailova Sales: CAA

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Entertainment | Celebrity news TikTok star, a Lehigh University…

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Entertainment | Celebrity news TikTok star, a Lehigh University grad, dies at 36

A celebrity news TikTok star who graduated from Lehigh University has died, according to her family.

Kyle Marisa Roth’s sister on Monday posted on Instagram that Roth died last week.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Lindsay Roth (@thehighfemme)

Roth, who went by username thekylemarisa_ , had more than 200,000 followers and more than 5 million likes on the social media platform. Her LinkedIn account states she graduated in 2009 from Lehigh University, where she played lacrosse.

Roth’s family is still processing her death and deciding how to properly celebrate her life, her sister said. Her family does not know how she died.

“I know she touched so many people with her humor, intelligence, beauty, gossip activism, athleticism and more – she had so many gifts,” her sister’s post reads in part.

Her mother posted on LinkedIn that her daughter touched lives with her “immense life on another platform.”

“Kyle loved and lived fiercely. Nothing makes sense now and we’ll understand more in the next few days,” she posted Monday.

Roth was 36, according to a report from the New York Daily News.

The Daily News reported that Roth’s main account had been removed from TikTok last month. She had posted from another TikTok account as recently as April 7.

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Screen Rant

10 movies & tv shows inspired by viral internet sensations.

Life imitates art, but the same goes the other way too. These TV shows and movies had their origins in web series or tweets that then went viral.

Hype House is a 2022 show that features the lives of TikTok personalities after their sudden popularity garnered by creating viral content that has spawned everything from music covers and TV shows.

Since the inception of the internet, creative minds worldwide have taken inspiration from viral videos and social media content to influence TV and movies. Whether it be a story woven by a single person from their computer or a social experiment made from an online account that somehow exploded and went viral, there have been many TV shows and movies that got their start in one way or another from a viral internet sensation.

Is It Cake? (2022)

Is It Cake? is the name of a Netflix show in which guest celebrities each take turns to guess whether the presented item in front of them is a cake or the object it's designed to look like. The show tests the perception of not only the guests but the viewers too, making them each question whether their own reality is as perceptive as they believe.

Related: 10 TV Shows Based On The Creator's Real Life

The series got its start in March 2022, but its origin goes back to when BuzzFeed uploaded a compilation of clips featuring the work of Tuba Geçkil, an artist that designs cakes mimicking real-life objects. Soon after, the trend spread across all of TikTok and YouTube, after which Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz got the inspiration to create a show in which celebrity guests take turns guessing whether the items in front of them are cakes or the objects they appear to be.

Zola (2020)

Zola tells the story of a part-time exotic dancer who, along with her co-worker, travels to Tampa, Florida, hoping to make it big. Of course, it wouldn't actually be a story without some tribulation. With gangs, violence, and crime -- Zola is a film definitely not for the light of heart.

The story derives from a single thread on Twitter, all posted by Aziah "Zola" King, who gave her perspective on what took place during that time in her life. The thread, which was posted on October 27, 2015, ended up going viral and garnered the attention of several big presences on the internet. Rolling Stones then published an article after the initial tweets, interviewing those mentioned, and eventually it was proven that the contents of the tweets were mostly true, leading to the film based on a true story .

S#*! My Dad Says (2010 - 2011)

An outspoken father who, more often than not, embarrasses their family with the odd or nonsensical things they say, is something many people can relate to. S#*! My Dad Says follows the protagonist, an unsuccessful writer who has to move back in with his father and his struggles to make the father-son relationship work for the sake of gaining inspiration from the odd things his father says.

In 2009, a thread was created on Twitter that compiled quotes from a seemingly elderly father figure and usually comprised of snarky comments or rants that were often more awkward than funny . Soon, it garnered enough popularity that people were eagerly awaiting new posts, and that's when Halpern and Patrick Schumacke picked it up, thinking that making a show depicting the life of the character in the tweets would make a good premise. The show aired on CBS from September 23, 2010, to February 17, 2011.

Light's Out (2016)

A family finds themselves terrorized by an entity that only attacks in areas without light - whether it's when they turn off their lights to go to bed or to leave their homes. Desperately, they investigate the entity to see if they can expel it from their lives before too many people get hurt.

Related: The Social Network & 9 Other Awesome Movies About Social Media And The Internet

Adapted from a short film made for the Bloody Cuts Horror Challenge, Light's Out was promptly released on both YouTube and then Vimeo, shortly after. The Light's Out film was released three years later, directed by David F. Sandberg, the same person behind the short film, after it became so popular that he was contacted by many agents after its premiere.

Hype House (2022)

On January 7, 2022, Netflix released the show Hype House. The show showcases the lifestyle of the members of the house, each of whom holds considerable popularity in the world of TikTok.

While the show relies on the popularity of the internet stars, it was not as much of a success with Netflix subscribers and viewers have rated it low, overall. But those who followed the personalities were able to get insight into their lives and learn the truth behind their relationships and plans for the future, all in an eight-episode season.

Fred: The Movie (2010)

It was in 2010 that Fred: The Movie aired on the popular children's television channel, Nickelodeon. The film takes place during a time in which the character of Fred falls in love and tries his best to impress the object of his affection by throwing a house party. Eager to throw the perfect party befitting of summer , Fred enlists the help of his friends.

The character of Fred Figglehorn was actually born in 2006. Lucas Cruikshank, the creator of the persona and the Fred YouTube series, was met with overwhelming popularity. He is also considered a YouTube pioneer when, in 2009, his channel was the first ever to reach 1 million subscribers .

Slender Man (2018)

The myth surrounding the entity known as Slender Man started out as "creepypasta," a story told on the internet on a forum known as Something Awful in 2009. The myth was originally created by Eric Knudsen as a submission for a Photoshop contest in which users were challenged to "create paranormal images."

Related: 10 BookTok Sensations Currently Being Adapted To Screen

That's when, in 2018, Slender Man made its debut. It took the story of a paranormal entity that possesses no facial features, long limbs, and can kill if made eye contact with. From there, the formula prompted users to create their own stories and content about the character, which eventually spawned a movie.

The Red Ape Family (2021 - )

In recent years, companies are popping up left and right, each promoting their own NFT designs for fans to either invest in or straight up purchase. Even celebrities get in on the action. The craze became so out of hand that many users on the internet began speculating and making their own theories on the NFT market .

One example of the power of NFT's popularity can be seen in the series, The Red Ape Family. While it doesn't exactly center around the concept of NFTs, it is the first series to feature well-known NFTs as characters in their own cinematic universe.

Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story (2015)

Inspired by the Slender Man craze, Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story is a film adaptation of the 2009 YouTube web series, Marble Hornets . The web series actually premiered its first episode exactly 10 days after the first Slender Man images were published online.

The film based on the web series first aired on April 7, 2015, and pulled viewers into a journey of mysterious and spooky lost tape footage, seeking to expand on the more than 90+ entries in the series. Fans who were already supportive of the series were excited for the feature, but it does not rank very high on aggregate sites.

South Park (1997 - )

South Park has been around for ages, and its main source of popularity derived from its ability to take recent events or pop culture trends and turn them into concepts for their show. The same applies even today, whether it be an episode featuring a parody on the concept of NFTs or a short series featuring how COVID-19 affected the characters in the show and its world.

The title is a sort of benchmark for all major events that take place in the world. However, its inception goes back to the early '90s when Trey Parker and Matt Stone both attended the University of Colorado at Boulder. The two debuted the concept and some of the characters in an animated short for school titled Jesus vs. Frosty, and the rest is history. And with a seemingly inexhaustible number of topics taken from the real world, there is no sign of the beloved series ending any time soon.

NEXT: 10 Best Movies Based On True Stories According To Ranker