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Topline
A short clip of TikToker Bella Poarch lip-syncing to the British rapper Millie B’s song ‘M To The B’ garnered nearly 45 million likes in 2020, making it the internet’s most-liked video—across all social platforms, including Instagram and YouTube—in a year in which TikTok cemented itself as one of the world’s biggest social media platforms thanks to its surging popularity among Gen Z.
TikTok now boasts the most-liked video on the internet.
Key Facts
In its year-end roundup, TikTok also ranked it the “top viral video” of 2020 based on “views” and “impact.”
Poarch’s video was uploaded in August this year and has already overtaken YouTube’s most-liked video — the 2017 music video “Despacito,” which has 41 million likes — making it the internet’s most-liked video, and highlighting TikTok’s rapid growth.
“Soph Aspin Send,” the actual name of the four-year-old British track that features the line “M To The B,” went viral after Poarch’s post, with many TikTokers following with their own renditions, with some even calling it the song of the summer.
Even Millie B, the artist behind the track, jumped on the bandwagon and posted her own version with the text “real queen bee is here now,” though it has only garnered around 4.6 million likes.
Despite her surging popularity, very little is known about Poarch, but according to her Instagram profile, she claims to be a Filipina and a U.S. Navy veteran.
TikTok ranks her as the platform’s third top rising star behind Charli D’Amelio and Tabitha Brown.
Big Number
49.4 million. That’s the total number of TikTok followers for Bella Poarch, who made her first post on the video-sharing platform in April this year and has gained followers faster than any other TikToker.
Key Background
Outgunning both Facebook and its messaging platform WhatsApp, TikTok became the most downloaded app of 2020, surging in popularity among Gen Z users, while inviting controversy and ban threats due to its Chinese ownership. TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, surpassed 2 billion downloads in April and is expected to top 1.2 billion monthly active users in 2021. This would be an impressive feat considering TikTok was banned in India — its largest market at the time — in June. While the Indian government blamed the apps for “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data” outside India, the ban was a fallout of border tensions between India and China. In the U.S. TikTok was also caught in the crossfire of escalating diplomatic tensions between the Trump administration and Beijing. Trump issued an executive order in August seeking to force the sale of TikTok, or otherwise ban the app. While ByteDance initially agreed to sell a portion of the platform to U.S. companies Oracle and Walmart, the deal has since been stuck in legal limbo. Despite this, the first major social media app that is operated outside the purview of a U.S. tech company has managed to churn out new stars and pull in eyeballs.
Surprising Fact
Seven TikTok stars or duos were featured on Forbes’ 2021 30 Under 30 List for Social Media, compared to six Youtuber stars or duos and just two Instagrammers. The subjective ranking offers an insight into the platform’s growing reach.
Tangent
While Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been accused of enabling Trump and other prominent right-wing voices, TikTok managed to become ground zero for the social media resistance against the president. TikTok users were in part credited for helping depress turnout at Trump’s Tulsa re-election rally in June by signing up for tickets to attend and then not showing up. TikTok users also forced the president’s campaign to reset the Trump app’s rating on the App Store after a coordinated trolling campaign cratered the app’s score. Most recently the platform’s users took on Trump, who has refused to accept his election loss, by urging prank calls to his campaign’s voter fraud hotline.
Further Reading
How TikTok changed the world in 2020 (BBC)
Essay: How do you describe TikTok? (Kyle Chayka)
This week in TikTok: And the most popular video of the year is … (Vox)
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