Something on the web about the web…
At first, I had no idea what to do for this project. I really liked the concept of using a word cloud for something, but I didn’t necessarily want to do it on a book or text. I wanted to bring the internet that I experience into the project.
As an avid TikTok watcher, I felt like that would be something really interesting to do this project on. I also felt like I could connect what role TikTok played in the community during quarantine. Because I had downloaded TikTok during the height of quarantine (although that may be relative), I felt like I could add my personal experiences with the app. TikTok is a social media platform where people can post up to 60 second videos of just about anything. Through my time using the platform, I have seen wide a varieties of things like vlog-style, cooking, dancing, Hank Green, and so much more. There are also some celebrities like Jason Derulo, Miley Cyrus, Lizzo, and (you guessed it) more. Personally, TikTok was a little bit of an escape from constantly checking the news and hearing about the pandemic. Thus, I wanted to make a comparison of two articles: “A Year on TikTok” and a “Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic” with word clouds.
TikTok created a virtual community where people who may have felt alone in quarantine could feel not alone anymore. In addition, it gave people some distraction and sense of normalcy in such an uncertain and lonely time. Some of the biggest words are community, creators, year, people, moments, content, creativity, and trends. A lot of the words are also random, but they show that TikTok has a diverse community. By June 2020, TikTok’s monthly users rose from 27 million American watchers to more than 91 million. In an August 2020 article by CNBC, it said that almost 50 million U.S. users used the app daily. Subsequently, an app that was originally aimed towards Gen Z’s and millenials gained more traction with all kinds of people.
Even though TikTok is a great escape from the pandemic, there are tons of content creators who help people understand more about the pandemic as well. Doctors, nurses, scientists, teachers and more all have used the platform to reach a wider audience to inform the public on how to be safe. TikTok also took proactive measures to to educate people about the virus and debunk myths. They have teamed up with the World Health Organization to create a Q&A page about the virus.
In this word cloud, I looked at a New York Times article on a timeline of the pandemic. In the word cloud, you can see some of the biggest words are China, virus, million, death, cases, pandemic, new, infections, and more. This word cloud is so much more different than the TikTok word cloud. Instead of bringing hope, it brings sadness and memories of the year we all went through.
Although it has been unprecedented times, the Internet (and people) find ways to bring entertainment, stories, information, and more through creative ways, and TikTok is one of the platforms that allows people to do so.
Article links used for the word clouds: