elsewhere, TikTok looks like a cornucopia of bright and busy nonsense: an endless, blooming, buzzing confusion of shaky videos and cheap special effects, dispensed free of charge in 15-second doses. But time spent on the app—or on its Chinese-owned peers, all of them abruptly blocked by the government on June 29th—had a way of leading curious users far from the big cities and celebrities that typically define Indian pop culture.
Thousands of people around India appear to have made a living recording and broadcasting short videos, mostly of shimmying, lip-synching and prat-falling, for millions of other Indians to whom they would otherwise have remained utterly obscure. TikTok had about 1.2m content creators and 120m monthly viewers. A striking proportion of the creators hailed from marginalised groups.
Amit Varma, a podcaster from Mumbai who ran an online course about TikTok, puts the app’s success down to timing. It arrived in 2017, just after Reliance Industries, a huge conglomerate, had launched Jio, a 4telecoms operation which radically reduced the cost of mobile data. Instead of a gigabyte a month, smartphone users suddenly had a gigabyte a day to play with. Cheaper Chinese handsets, meanwhile, made owning a smartphone more affordable.
“This is not content made by clueless elites,” Mr Varma says. “In Bollywood a few big shots run the whole thing. But they have outdated ideas about what people want.” What they really want, if TikTok’s algorithms had it right, is weirder, homelier and more varied material than they could find on television, YouTube, Instagram or any of the English-first apps favoured by wealthy urbanites.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Fifteen seconds of fame"
印度就这心眼,还鸡巴得说什么成为世界性大国。 做你的大头梦去吧 哦,也不是,印度也可以成为“世界强奸案发生大国”。也是世界大国。
Not an issue chingari will fill the void for all. cheers
Hahahahaha....marginalised groups my ass .. you Chinese bots
The elite class never understood the common people in the street..
How much for one pro Tiktok article paid by china ? Asking for a friend ?
And
How much have they paid?
So stealing your personal info is ok?
TikTok_IN is the worst app for Indians that's why Indian government banned it includes 59 more worst app . Thanks to Indian government BJP4India and PMOIndia .
Indian government has banned 59 Chinese app BJPBetraysOurJawans ChineseSpokieModi ChineseAppBlocked tiktokbanindia TikTok ChineseSpokieModi IndiaChinaFaceOff ChineseAppsBanned ShareIt boycottchinaproudct
Dear We appreciate your caring nature towards us, but to pass our time, the country now has more and better platforms - RoposoLove Mitronapp NaveenTewari
If America didn’t steal all the best programmers from India, maybe they would just make their own Tic Toc
Nunca vayasiiiir manto JoeGarcia110
Indian`papa now talks. UK tought.its post slave well as these slave even using UK language as the main national language and feel proud of it. wtf, Chinese never can understand how could that.happen. China fight UK France German Russia Sweden in 18th Century to avoid being slaved
I’m no fan of the Indian government, but in the wake of a border skirmish in which at least 20 Indians were killed by Chinese forces, banning an app controlled by the Chinese government from collecting data inside your country doesn’t seem like an outrageous response.
Are you funded by the Chinese? With 3 major made for entertainment companies by CEOs.. do people really need Tiktok? How about ask the population to read a newspaper or a book?
Good for India!
India's favourite? You mean the more gullible?
Wow ! Sympathies sailing from London to India. Dear BRITISHERS, Gone are the days when you ruled us. When will you realise that ? DO NOT TRY TO INTERFERE in our INTERNAL MATTERS. You want to discuss about India ? Why dont you talk about this 👇 attaching a comment. NO HIGHWAYS ?
numerous other options on hand with Indians. Don't write such crap just because you get paid by some cheap chinese folks to promote this
Just shows how much Chinese have invested in the Economists.
Calm down, no one is being deprived of anything. We live in a time of unlimited nonsense - there will in no time be another app for those who want to consume it.
Economist sold soul to CCP years ago.
India is basically an authoritarian state now.
Time will always pass.
Close Whats_appp_uni and Facebook for one year, One can feel the degree of unemployment in India.
Addiction rather
Those gentlemen must have wondered what idiots visit a place as enchanting as Shri Darbar Sahib and watch TikTok instead. Good riddance.
And so it continues on the road to dictatorship, fascism, and all the other fun words we use with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. You all who were excited that stats said India was the fastest growing democracy, eeek!!
We know, British news like to cover India in a negative and think that we are still a country of “snakes and charmers”. But please note, we have our own home grown social media apps, which are well funded and doing well. So, we don’t need your baseless judgments.
India made a smart decision! Bravo to them. Why should they have TikTok? Owned by the Chinese. The very country who attacked their military.
Economist is eating the shit of Han Chinese, the new Nazis on the planet.
possibly to allow politicians to search new pass time to take revenge
They is building a firewall and developing Internet industry🤔 Good luck. 所以说都一样,各个国家谁也别逼逼谁了
The great people of India hate tictok. You guys must not use reddit
Good for India!
Yes. Favorite pastime of making misogynist, hinduphobic and cringey videos.
Need to be more worried about a potential war with China than being tracked by your potential enemy because you enjoy your “favorite pastime”
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
China bashes their nose and and they have to support Chinese companies?
And from a very sofisticaded spy tool
The Indians don't care....As they want to be number 1.....
A pastime?! Maybe it would be an good opportunity for them to think about doing a better and useful activity rather than wasting time in such a silly app.
The image you are using is not related to the ban at all. TikTok was/is banned in Shri Darbar Sahib from a long time. So much for investigative journalism?Tell your boys & girls to do more.
😆🤪😆🤪😆🤪
Tik Tok distances itself from Beijing in response to India app ban.
Hey jack might be a good time to bring back Vines..
I’m pretty sure they have thousands upon thousands of other past times... this is a petty article paid for by China
They also had a problem with fake accusations that led to mobs killing people...
With a national IQ of 82 what would you expect
Create ur own TikTok india
The economist used to be a wonderful magazine. This headline is beyond belief. What happened to Western media and critical thinking? Sadly, you have become a parody of yourself.
Maybe Indians don't want their data to be gathered & sent to China? Pretty sure Indians won't have a hard time finding other venues to entertain themselves.
Not surprising the commies at The False Economist support China’s privacy and security invasion programs.
What's weird for many SELLOUT media houses in the WEST, will soon be followed by the REST. Don't put our patience to TEST, and stop quoting our ideas and opinions as a stupid JEST. Former CIA director SecPompeo and many others appreciated the move. Who are you ?
Because it is MIC am I right?
Sure milords. We should let the Brits decide the type of comedy which we prefer. A shallow mouthpiece of a falling power trying to derive some superiority sense from the vestige of colonialism and racism.
Americas ban on Heroin derives me if a favorite pastime. But those are the breaks man.
Chalo yeh bhi to' Thik Thaak' Hai....
EUtopean It should be banned worldwide!
Favourite past time? Or creating ADHD zombies? Either way, the developer gains wealth. The users loses health.
Haha noway we are happy it's banned.. but i understand presstitutes just received a cheque from Pimp Xinping.. it's okay.. no job is small
Gfy
Paid media ka rona start.
Prefer homegrown Apps
Be careful what you wish for there my Indian friends 😅
This is chinese paid fakenews
nikita_yadav 😭💔
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