{"id":20718,"date":"2024-02-27T18:07:45","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T02:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=20718"},"modified":"2024-02-27T18:14:10","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T02:14:10","slug":"tiktoks-dont-belong-in-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/tiktoks-dont-belong-in-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiktoks don&#8217;t belong in film"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Written by: <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lili Minato | Freelancer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Content warning: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">this article contains spoilers&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The original song \u201cSexy\u201d starts to play as Karen Shetty \u2014 played by Avantika \u2014 appears on the screen to record a TikTok about Halloween. As she ends her video, multiple other tiktokers appear on screen singing the same song. A collage of vertical videos fills the large movie theater screen, complete with off-brand heart, share and comment emoticons inspired by the social media app.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The film\u2019s desired effect of relatability does not occur as the audience is vocally taken aback. The implementation of social media apps in films created by an older generation for a younger audience often does not have the desired effect on audiences.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trend has been prominently used in coming-of-age Netflix movies for an indulgent audience, with the hopes that it will convince children and teens alike to relate to their poorly written main characters. Now, this idea has infected the big screen.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ironically, the recent \u201cMean Girls\u201d musical \u2014 which has been even more popularized through TikTok \u2014 has tried and failed to cater to the youth of today. While having a good chance of being a decent film, the consistent usage of social media caused the downfall of the musical.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hailee Carmody \u2014 a sophomore at Western \u2014 shares her opinion on the matter, \u201cI think it (TikToks) takes you out of the movie quite a bit, especially when the phone frames the scene,\u201d Carmody said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Later in the film, TikToks are used once again to show the spread of Regina George\u2019s downfall. In the clips of students sharing their grievances against George, tiktokers and celebrities \u2014 like Megan Thee Stallion \u2014 appear on screen as well.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This causes shock within the audience \u2014 whether it be negative or positive. Carmody related to the former option, \u201cIncluding tiktokers is more promotion (for the film) and I think they added nothing to the story, they were just a face,\u201d stated Carmody.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The TikTokers that were included are popular on TikTok but outside of social media, they don\u2019t have much of an impact on viewers. It\u2019s simply another half-hearted attempt to relate to the target audience of teenagers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Social media and film are the oil and vinegar of media, they never mix well. The off-brand icons and the internet slang age movies and take audiences out of the watching experience.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead of its intended use of relatability, TikTok turns good films into tacky, laughable cash grabs with little substance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contact the author at lminato22@mail.wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":20719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1791],"tags":[2177,1593,2174,2179,213,2175,2178,533,2176],"class_list":["post-20718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-special","tag-avantika","tag-film","tag-mean-girls","tag-mean-girls-musical","tag-movie","tag-musical","tag-renee-rapp","tag-tiktok","tag-tina-fey"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}