Losing the Archive: When a Platform Ceases

will i ever monetize

?

will i ever monetize ?

The “Archive”

As creators and users like me on TikTok await the fate of the platform in the US, I started thinking of social media platforms much like photo album archives that you would find in your grandma's attic. I joke but I'm serious. 

The first platform I used was Instagram that I deactivated in 2021 out of spite toward Meta…among other reasons. But when I deactivated my Instagram and Facebook accounts, I also subconsciously made the decision that I was okay with losing that archive that documented 7 years of my life from 2014-2021. I could save my photos and videos elsewhere but how they functioned and stood on the platforms was/is now gone.

I moved to Snapchat for my days in undergrad before the platform was even monetizable. The “Snapchat Memories” function stands as an archive of my time in undergrad through videos– that is if I even remember my login. 

Creators Lose or Migrate Followings

But when platforms like Vine reach deletion entirely, the archives are no longer able to be accessed. Some creators make compilation videos from their favorite viral creators, but the evidence of the casual creator who didn’t have a big following is lost on-platform. Some creators will be successful on other platforms, but many will not. Each social media platform comes with its own set of rules and culture that may not translate.

Will they Thrive?

Social media personality and multi-hyphenate creator Franchesca Ramsey boldly said in a TikTok video:

“If TikTok does get banned, there will be a bunch of people with huge audiences who we will never hear from again.”

- Franchesca Ramsey

She references Vine and how some creators were only able to thrive on specific platforms but not others. I agree, especially when she frames this around the functionality and accuracy of TikTok's algorithm changing how discoverability on-platform happened. 

Franchesca Ramsey Full Video here.

All platforms are now more difficult than ever to grow an audience on, but TikTok catapulted so many new creators starting in 2020 onward who had just begun content creation.

One example of a creator who had a large following on Vine and successfully moved to other platforms is Comedy Creator Sarah Schauer.

Schauer kept the comedy theme from Vine, but experimented with different formats of content like the continuation of skits but added storytimes, podcasting, and interactive video like their Lego-building series on YouTube. 

Screenshot of Sarah Schauer’s TikTok bio, Dec. 17, 2024

Screenshot of Sarah Schauer’s YouTube bio, Dec. 17, 2024

Sources I've been following for info related to the potential U.S. ban:

thx for reading!

thx for reading!

Avoiding TikTok Moderation through Satire

will i ever monetize

?

will i ever monetize ?

Meme-ified Satire?

Satire is a comedic tool that is used to exaggerate something; often an exaggeration of a phenomena that is alarmingly ridiculous yet it is reality. It can also be referred to as “parody” which may be more familiar to use. 

I began sporadically posting short video essays on TikTok two years ago. Many of my videos were moderated from the feed and received low viewership. I believe that this is due to a combination of me not perfecting my niche of content yet, the fact that I talk about topics that critique the platform’s culture while using words such as “harmful,” and “toxic” within my content which the platform does not favor. And third, TikTok's moderation policies are fickle and ever-changing.

My new strategy was to gain visibility and grow a broader audience on the platform and I noticed what users seemed to value in these serious times of political, social, and environmental unrest: Entertainment and humor. Users, me included, seek a temporary escape through online entertainment.

A form of satire that has been useful over the years is news channel satire as seen on mainstream television and scripted comedy such as Saturday Night Live. So I created a news segment on my channel and meme-ified it with an understanding of what TikTok audiences find humorous. Lots of random sounds to foster engagement to the TikTok attention span, the use of captioning, avoiding the use of on-platform music (especially after the UMG debacle this year), and leaning on something I value personally – humor.  

SNL ‘Weekend Update’

With Michael Che and Colin Jost (2018)

How I Gained Almost Half a Million Views (440K as of December 2024)

I am admittedly and shamelessly chronically online on TikTok; it is my platform of choice. I notice and critique phenomena and trends on the app constantly. 

A trend that was circulating in September 2024, when I created my most-viewed video, was the circulation of porn-related audios that were put onto the platform by a user on TikTok named @yeskingproductions. I later found out through various forum posts on sites like Reddit that the audios were directly from a popular sex worker named LoveandLightTV. Particularly I found the origins through r/loveandlighttv, where users create sometimes problematic mashups of the audio and video content related to the porn creator.

The TikTok user @yeskingproductions posts gaming clips with unrelated gay pornography sounds as the audio and has somehow managed to continuously evade TikTok's moderation and censorship process. I reached out to the user for comment and we direct messaged (DM'd) a little but no further response was made by the user to confirm my request for an interview. The audios continue to circulate the platform today.

TikTok DM between (@yeskingproductions) and me.

Partial DM: Only including my introductory message to honor privacy.

My task was to talk about this trend while, much like @yeskingproductions, evade moderation. So I made a satirical video as a newscaster for entertainment but the genuine conversation I wanted to have was about platform moderation. I still seek to know how TikTok upholds certain moderation practices and how the platform’s policy is geared toward “kid safety” but would allow these audios to be circulated on-platform without a warning label at minimum and a removal at maximum.

My approach to satirical content on TikTok is to ‘say everything by saying nothing,’ so that I can have my videos flow into the feed. This is the current state of TikTok moderation: Sometimes controversial content is allowed, other times not. It is difficult to assess even as a content creator and researcher of social media platforms. 

Video Analytics

Watch the full video here.

This video has gained me over 600 new followers, amplified my visibility on-platform, and has given me at least one segmented niche that I may continue in the future: News casting satire of trending topics.

I seek to provide content that is thought-provoking and informative but delivered in an entertaining and sometimes humorous manner.

-jamie

thx for reading!

thx for reading!