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About the author

Wiebke Aepkers is a second-year IBCoM student, currently living in Rotterdam. She used to be the Marketing manager of last year’s Arts & Culture Committee. In her free time, she likes to read classic literature, watch K-Dramas, and order Garlic Twisters from Dominos. Is a Master of procrastination, of starting heated political debates when drunk, and of finding hidden gems on Netflix. 

TikTok creators on my FYP

The first time I downloaded TikTok was sometime around this country's first lockdown, meaning that I have been scrolling through the app for over a year now. What I first thought to be a place for 14-year-olds creating cringy very mediocre dancing videos turned out actually turn into one of the most diverse and interesting platforms ever. While I do not understand much about algorithms, whatever TikTok does very much works in convincing me to waste multiple hours on end just scrolling and laughing. It seems like the system has figured out my interest to a T, generating content specifically tailored to me and my kind of humor.

I then find it super interesting to talk to other people about their experiences on the app and what kind of content they regularly see on their fyp. Because most of the time, theirs actually look VERY different from the one I have, demonstrating how versatile the creators and the content on the app actually are. So, this led me to the idea of sharing some of my favorite content creators with you that I see pop up on my fyp daily, yet you may or may not have never heard of. Some are more known than others. Some are funny, some just very random, and a few are actually quite educational. Here I present to you some of my personal favorite TikTok creators in an attempt to perhaps encourage you to broaden the horizon of your fyp:

@tiddygoals

Starting off strong, we have Lily who has made it her goal to educate her (mostly) female audience about sex, the expectations we have about it, and common misconceptions surrounding it. She talks about anything sex-related in a very open and informed way by sharing what she is learning in university as an aspiring sex therapist. She also doesn’t shy away from talking about feminist topics and encourages her audience to challenge the taboo we have created around talking about sex.

@habari_njema

I only recently found this account which turned out to be an absolute gem. Harabi uses her videos to inform people about recent African politics and pop culture. She has formats like “GoodNewsSundays” in which she summarizes all the positive things that happened in the African countries throughout the last week. These often include new technologies, research, and human rights accomplishments. Through this, Habari highlights the diverse nature of the continent in an attempt to educate people who still stereotype Africa as being one big underdeveloped country due to a lack of knowledge about the region.

@the.navarose

This one you might be familiar with as the channel hit 5 million followers a few weeks back and therefore counts as one of the very popular ones in the app. It is the fashion channel of LA-based Filipino creator, Nava Rose. This woman probably has THE largest clothes collection I have ever seen in my life. In her videos, she shows off her extremely versatile and creative looks by demonstrating her extremely beautiful and extravagant fashion sense. Super inspirational to watch if you are interested in the field of fashion.

@basicallybetsy

Betsy’s channel definitely will not be comfortable to watch for anyone because they will call you out for the racist behavior that you may or may not have been conscious about. While my first instinct to some of their videos was to take offense, I have learned a lot from their rather straightforward and very much unapologetic opinions. If you are serious about trying to be more actively anti-racist in your everyday behavior and to understand more about the systematic nature of racism (no matter your race), I would highly recommend checking them out and listen to what they have to say!

@herfirst100k

Next, we have Tori Dunlap’s channel which is amongst the more well-known ones on the app. Tori is a female financial advisor who has made it her mission to challenge the patriarchy by making more women rich. In her videos, she offers free financial advice and has multiple series that teach her audience about important things within the economics worlds such as investing, starting your own business, and salary negotiations as a woman. I personally have learned so much about investing from just watching her videos and following her book recommendations that I feel confident to actually start investing myself.

@auntkaren0

Karen has claimed the title of “TikTok’s favorite Karen” after the name has been become pretty much a synonym for narrow-minded, “up-in-your-business”, racist and overall annoying conservative ladies. She herself is nothing of that sort and has instead made it her mission to call out and hold accountable people who have behaved in a sexist or racist way on the internet. She usually provides screenshots of the people’s problematic comments or videos and encourages people to hold them accountable by informing their schools and unis or reaching out to family members to make them aware of the people's problematic online behaviors. 

@hankgreen1

I am sure many of you are familiar with YouTube-original, Vidcon organizer, and science-legend Hank Green. I have been watching him ever since high school as he and his brother’s (famous author John Green) YouTube crash course series has helped me pass countless of my exams. Now the man has also made his way onto TikTok to educate all of us clueless people about all things science. Some might even go so far as to call him the Bill Nye of TikTok.

Honorable mentiones:

@troysavan, @lilnasx & dojacat

I am of the strong belief that TikTok is the platform for the average person to shine and rise. Therefore, I am usually not too fond of celebrities feeling the need to join the platform as creators and redirecting attention away from smaller creators. However, if there is a celebrity that has figured out TikTok culture and what kind of content people come to see, it is Troye Savan, LilNasX, and Doja Cat. Unlike many of their celebrity colleagues, these three just get what it is about. The humor, the linguistics. They just know how to create the funny, relatable content that we are here to see, making us forget that they are, in fact, multi-millionaires and, therefore, not actually relatable at all.