This is a response to Promotional Culture and Us.

The article on Promotional Culture with the example of its presence on Spotify got me thinking about promotional culture on TikTok and its relation to a promotional media aspect with gen-z.

TikTok, with its popularity among generation-z has successfully gathered the support of the masses. Content creators on TikTok post multiple sponsorships, ads, and content for TikTok and different brands. Although, a possible reason for the influx of such partnerships are probably because your chances to be a mediator in promotional media through TikTok are significantly higher than any other social media platform given TikTok’s format. On TikTok, going viral once can change the trajectory of your life, we see this with famous TikTok creators such as Charli Damelio. Someone who got famous on TikTok not only will promote TikTok on other social media platforms, but they will also become representative of the app, and undeniably, endorse it.

Promotional media is linked with advertising and on TikTok it is so easy to disguise promotional ads and weave them into content in a natural way. Posting ‘get ready with me’ or ‘things i’m loving recently’ videos on TikTok is the norm but in the nature of content like this, it is just as easy to disguise advertising for different brands, or TikTok itself.

TikTok has successfully incorporated itself into the culture of generation-z, and just as anything else would, TikTok has also not shied away from revealing their capitalist ideals of profit making and the easiest way to go about it is through promotional media.