Plenty of pictures with no context, ranging from bizarre, to shocking, to funny, and everything in between, are shared on the X (formerly Twitter) account called ‘Wild TikToks’. As you’ve probably assumed, the account is dedicated to another popular social media platform, TikTok, and the random—typically somewhat wild—videos people post there. If you’re curious to see what they are about, scroll down to find some ‘Wild TikToks’ on the list below to find out. Below you will also find Bored Panda’s interview with an expert in social media, Part-time Faculty in Marketing at Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University, Nick Mattar, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about X and social media. The large number of followers the account has might not be surprising considering how many people are users of X, or TikTok, for that matter. As of April 2024, the former boasts more than 0.611 B active monthly users and TikTok has close to 1.6 B. (With more than 3 B active monthly users, Facebook is the leader among social media platforms.) “Social media is inherently an addictive activity. It provides instant gratification while all major platforms utilize incredible algorithms that show us exactly what we want to see, when we want to see it,” Nick Mattar told Bored Panda, pointing out what it is that draws us to it. “Additionally, content creators have become so well-versed in creating attention-grabbing material that their videos, tweets, and images are designed to capture your attention and keep you watching.” “This is the perfect description of a meme or gif that goes viral and becomes part of internet culture. The beauty of memes and gifs—and now short video clips, too—is that anyone can apply any popular piece of content to their own personal situation as they see fit. If the content is understood to mean a universal feeling (like frustration, happiness, or another emotion), then it doesn’t matter where it originated. Memes, gifs, and short videos have become a way for us to express ourselves to an online audience. We use these because it removes emotion and introduces humor into situations that may be otherwise uncomfortable,” Mattar explained. “While we used to believe Twitter was successful due to its unique platform and ‘micro-blogging’ functionality, the failure of Threads showed us that was not the case. Threads had much of the same features but fell flat after booming with 100 million users. But Twitter users had established a community that was a combination of real-world connections and people they only interacted with on the platform - a much different community than Threads, which imported your Instagram friends. The result and secret sauce: Twitter users have developed a community over nearly 20 years that cannot be replicated anywhere else.” Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
