Will Trump's New Algorithm Fix TikTok? | Creator Upload

0:28Welcome to Creator Upload, your Creator Economy Podcast. That is what it was. And so why don't you explain the more layman's terms to the audience? So basically, you know, historically, normally, you know, Dancing with Stars will do like theme nights. They have like, like, of course, they do a Halloween night, which you can imagine is just like amazing. Next week is Disney night. And so and so on, like they did one hit wonders night. So last night was this week was was TikTok night. It was the first time they'd ever done anything like this. you know they've really leaned quite heavily into tiktok uh this year because they you know they had charlie d 'amelian a couple years ago who won and they um you know dancing with stars has kind of become cool as the kids say and what was they want to be hip with that gen z gen alpha yeah and and you know as we've discussed before like the sort of organic nature organic connection between dance um and you know you tiktok i should say and and dance and then now specifically ballroom dancing is it's just you can't write this stuff you can't make this stuff up i mean it's a really it's All for all intents and purposes, it's absolutely, from a business standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, 100 % what they should be doing.

1:31That being said, oh my God. So I took the liberty of writing all of my thoughts down while watching two hours of this. I'm not going to read all of them, Josh. I may post all of these, though. But like, I mean. Is it up to 54 and counting? 54. 54 and counting thoughts, yes, that I had about sort of watching this. And like a couple highlights, if I may. my first thing I wrote down was like, Instagram must want to die. Because like, it was just like, you I mean, I have to imagine the TikTok paid for this. Like, I have to imagine there was some monetary something that must have been right. Like some type of at least some marketing partnership.

2:11Well, they're definitely because it's certain there were certain dances where they did the overlay, like they were on TikTok, like for a couple like beats or whatever. Right. And so like, obviously, they got the marketing. What's crazy, before I go down my list is, you know when when instagram was let's say at its real height and popularity and culture and stuff the shitty thing is that like it was still at a time when doing that kind of an integration with a social platform was not it wasn't it was too early and you know what i mean like they wouldn't have gone as deep and the technology wasn't there the way it is today you couldn't have gotten that seamless of an overlay like i can just remember like you know working with the comms team at facebook and instagram and trying to get like a link properly embedded into a website was sometimes I'm still an issue.

2:52When you say it's an overlay, the screen basically went to vertical video format? That's so cool. Correct. What was on the bars on the side? Black. Wow. Black. And then they did, and then they have the hearts and they did it with Alex Earle and they did it with, oh, they did it with Mark Ballas and his partner who is Whitney something. I think it's Whitney, but she's one of the Mormon housewives who I didn't, these Mormon housewives came up, they're all TikTok women that like came up dancing like the one of them was kind of creepy the first dance she i think it was the first dance of the night she i guess her first big tiktok viral video was when she had just given birth in the hospital and so she's like dancing so the the dance was her in like a fake prosthetic belly for like a minute dancing and it was like everybody was kind of like all right like the judges were like no the belly was a little bit much um so okay a couple fun things instagram months these are my couple of my fun i'm gonna read some highlights instagram must want to die omg china um how much does tiktok pay for this you couldn't pay for this kind of press and then they said something like the worldwide sensation of tiktok and then i wrote except for the countries that have been banned example example india does india not count is it not a country like i don't india is like more per capita people than like i don't even know but now it doesn't count cool we're good i'm and then i wrote cut to uh instagram night on dancing with the stars in india which probably youtube shorts night on dance stars in india um what And what I found, so the entire audience was basically made up of like TikTokers and stuff.

4:20And what I found kind of, I don't know if troubling is the world, but just the reality that we're in is that, you know, it's called Dancing with the Stars. And the stars in the next 10 years are all going to be like TikTokers and YouTubers. 100%, yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's not going to be movie stars anymore to like do this. And it's just, I don't know, man. It's a lot. I think there will still be Real Housewives. Bravo Lebrides. Bravo Lebrides, sure. Bravo Leverties. And they're still going to make movies and TV shows, but it's just going to be like, whereas it used to be like, you know, as of two years ago, it was like, oh my god, you have a TikToker on.

4:53This is crazy. And now it's like three out of whatever I call it, a dozen contestants or, you know, social media. You know, it's like it's now, it's just like it's just going to keep and keep getting bigger. But what's interesting though is millennials have a tight grip on nostalgia culture. We haven't let younger generations have a lot of what of like new cultural kind of touch points and big. But these were their new cultural touch points. Exactly. But in like in what used to be monoculture in television, film, et cetera, it's all stuff that we grew up with and we really liked that we've been forcing into the hearts and minds of younger generations.

5:33And I think that explains a little bit why there's this appeal for all of these TikTokers, all of these YouTubers, et cetera. Obviously, because of the technology is easier for these kids to get a hand on. Obviously, because there's way more people that are involved in the entertainment ecosystem than there could have been before. Also, just because we haven't let like we haven't come up with any new ideas. It's all stuff that we've liked. I know. And it's because it's because there's no market for them. Yeah, basically. And so what I'm saying, too, is I think like. Individuals who were on Saved by the Bell still might be on Dancing with the Stars in 10, 20 years.

6:07Thank you for. Thank you. I appreciate that. Can I read some more of my commentary? It's really good. so of course so one of the Mormon housewives I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for TikTok so start posting now Charlie D 'Amelio TikTok changed my life and the life of so many people this is I wrote this is getting so gross and then Jordan Childs who is the Olympic athlete on it she goes I use TikTok as my outlet with anxiety maybe a lot of people need it in the world I mean literally she's like can we speaking of TikTok can we put some vomit emojis on this yeah just some effusive praise I mean it was just Yes.

6:42And I literally wrote America. We have officially sold our soul. Is that George Lopez? I think he was in the audience. One of the Mormon wives, I guess one of her biggest TikToks, her first one was like 35 million views dancing in her PJs. And I said, okay, we all need to get a life. Oh, and then there's the Pentatonix guy who is partnered with Riley Arnold. Riley Arnold is one of the pros who she's big on TikTok. And his whole, because they'll do a package before they do the show about them training for the dance. And his whole bit was that he did a, you know, had a viral, he married his husband.

7:14So he had a gay wedding where they did a dance and it went viral on TikTok. And like, now the world is okay. Like, this is the messaging. Like, it's good for anxiety. It's good for the gays. It's good for feeding people. Your dreams can come true and you could be on Dancing with the Stars. Oh, wait, my favorite one, Robert Irwin. You gotta love him. The nature guy. TikTok is an avenue to connect with nature. I wrote, or you could just go to nature and leave the house. Like, I was just like, one thing that I did think was interesting, because if you remember several years ago, we talked about it on the podcast, was a lot of folks that were, had originally choreographed, like, what became very major viral sensation and moves were not getting the credit.

7:54They had, they were giving credit to a lot of, because they incorporated a lot of these, you know viral dance moves into the into the whole night and they were and there were at least a couple in person they were giving credit to those like choreographers there which i thought was actually very interesting that is very cool and kudos to them and they have to right i mean if there's any show that's going to give credit to actual dancers yeah it's going to be dancers with the stars dancing with the stars yes um yes a couple other uh alex are all no dreams are too big just go for them from alex are all and i wrote please don't um and then what are the other things i gotta say honestly like all because a lot of the music or all the music basically was tiktok you know music that had become viral on tiktok whether or not it had been famous and there was some beaver which is good but like a lot of the music was freaking terrible like can i just like can we just like was these are not songs that i was excited um anyway these songs aren't for you i understand that josh i can accept that i'm just telling you my thoughts this was my list and my thoughts um and then yes the last one i wrote is i need to take a shower i mean um and And then it was funny because I was, of course, trolling on Instagram as I was watching this.

9:00And I came across the Republican Utah government, Governor Cox, calling social media a cancer that's driving division in America. It's taking all the worst impulses and putting them on steroids. It's driving us to division. It's driving us to hate. So, but, you know, long live TikTok. I'm just like, I don't know, man. It was a lot. Because I think that knowing the show so well and knowing that they were treating TikTok the way they treat Disney. You know what I mean? And like that with that reverence, with that. Yeah. You know, that I found troubling. Like whether or not you think it should be banned, we shouldn't be worshipping the feet of.

9:38You know what I mean? I think that's a little bit much. But, you know, they'd be marketing. They'd be doing their thing. I think it's hard to do nuance on primetime television. Yes. Yes. So there were, I would say there was roughly no nuance as it came, as it pertained to this. But it was, but I got through it. I watched it. And yeah, there you go. But Lauren, we're currently in season 34 of Dancing with the Stars. By season 35 of DWTS, on that season's TikTok night, you might have just a whole different feeling about it. I mean, I certainly might. And if I end up, my dreams come true and I can never end up on the show, I mean, I'm going to be TikTok-ing until the night.

10:15All day, man. Never been on the platform, never signed up, but I'm going to be on it. You know what I'm saying? But I mean, you might have a whole other emotional response to the night because they all might be dancing to whatever the U.S. version of the TikTok app is going to be called. True. Like, we don't know. Well, let's get on to their first big story as it relates to TikTok. There's been some movement, some would argue, some would say not movement, with regards to sort of the never-ending TikTok saga. Will it go? Will it stay? And evidently, the White House issued an executive order that clears the way for acquisition of TikTok's U.S.

10:48assets. A group of corporate billionaires and venture firms, including Oracle, Silver Lake Management, will take control of a U.S. version of TikTok tentatively in a deal that's valued around$14 billion. dollars, there's no indication that China is on board with this. So, you know, just because U.S., the president says it is true, does not mean that anybody, this is actually going to happen. Yeah. And if it did happen, ByteDance and its affiliates will own less than 20 percent of the U.S. version of TikTok, while these other investors will own 80 percent. And that$14 billion price is also about what eMarketer pegged as the revenues of TikTok in the United States, were for the previous year.

11:33So it's in line with that. I think it would cost more, honestly. I'm surprised by the price, but who knows? It may end up being way more. In any case, Trump seems more confident with this than ever. I mean, never before has he signed an executive order talking about the deal with TikTok. So that would probably indicate that it's closer than ever to being done, though who knows? And I think what this does is also just raise some questions of what will a US version of TikTok actually be like? will other areas of the world be able to watch this u.s version of tiktok we talked about before how senators from australia were contemplating if there are going to be two versions of tiktok and one is going to be presumably more safe and not controlled by china than the other australia would like to use the u.s version of tiktok too how our international audience is going to use tiktok will india adopt the u.s version of tiktok i mean instagram is going hard in india right now i will tell you that right now i'm telling youtube shorts youtube shorts i think has a stranglehold on just the the indian short form video market there's one town in india where like 80 of them are on youtube shorts just crushing it i mean i believe you i'm not i'm not this isn't to take away from youtube shorts i was just i when i think of anyway go on i understand competitors you think instagram right correct i think all competitors are going deep in india right now i'm just being like fuck i got one left you know what i mean but also i think it raises questions about what this actual US app would look like.

12:56So Trump was asked by supporters, how will this new TikTok be different? What will the algorithm be like? To which Trump responded, quote, I always like MAGA related. If I can make it 100 % MAGA, I would, but it's not going to work out that way, unfortunately, Trump said. No, everyone's going to be treated fairly. Every group, every philosophy, every policy will be treated very fairly. TBD on how that actually turns out. I feel like it's an honest response. He's saying what he wants. I mean, like, I think, I mean, like, you can't fall, you know, I mean, like, at least he's not lying. He was like it to be a certain thing.

13:28And he's probably like, it's not going to be a certain thing. So there you go. TikTok also hasn't responded to this formally yet. The Chinese foreign ministry did say last Friday that the Chinese government, quote, respects the wishes of the company and is pleased to see the company conduct commercial negotiations and reach a solution that complies with Chinese laws and regulations and balances interests, all while adhering to market rules, end quote. I'm just dubious if China's like on board with something. I feel like something's going on in the back end. That's, you know, something that I don't know.

13:57Well, let's see what happens. And what's more here, too, is Larry Ellison's Oracle is going to be a big investor in this U.S. version of TikTok. Which has been consistent since like Trump's first term that he's been like. 100%. Yeah, been a part of this. Donald and Larry are seemingly buddies. They're going to do a lot of business together. A lot of deals. But what's interesting is that if this goes through and Oracle and Larry Ellison by way of Oracle, who's now jockeying back with Elon Musk as being the number one or number two richest person in the world at over$400 billion in that worth. He is building a little bit of a media empire here through just his whole family.

14:35So last year, Skydance Media merged with Paramount and Larry's son, David Ellison, runs Paramount. and this means that through his family Larry Ellison has a controlling stake in the broadcast network CBS in Paramount Plus in multiple movie studios CBS News and almost all of IACOM Nickelodeon MTV Comedy Central and more and I just think it sets up this man to be this huge media mogul I think the likes of which we haven't really seen before like I don't think you don't think the the murdochs have been doing something similar or the redstones so maybe maybe a new version of that but they haven't had access to one of the most popular and influential social media apps on the planet yes from a social media standpoint yes but i think that there have been other families if you will that have had you know relatively amounts of powder not necessarily a good thing or bad thing i'm just i mean probably not a good thing but i'm just saying like it's not unusual for like these things to happen per se 100 i think it's setting ellison up to be the next murdochs yeah of the world yep in in their media power and influence and reach yeah no totes setting up some sort of uh we're looking at conglomerates that's super fun guys people just need to understand that like there's biases and you know all reporting and news and this and that but i also like hesitate in saying that because i just feel like there's so little trust in the world for like you know that i feel like it's just it's a dangerous world to live in where you trust everything and it's a dangerous world to live in where you trust no do you know what i'm saying yeah i feel like we've gotten in the direction where nobody trusts anybody except if they're like a random person on tiktok you know what i mean because like they can't be lying to me because they didn't come from like with some agenda i'm like of course they have a fucking agenda their agenda now is to get more views and you know what i mean and so it's like yeah i'm just like can they say out of my dancing with the stars can they just like leave Like, come on, people.

16:31In other TikTok-related adjacent nudes, we've got a few folks out there that are making, like, more short-form app versions of, like, TikTok on their own platform. So the first up is OpenAI. They launched a TikTok-like app for AI videos that lets you deepfake your friends. Oh, this isn't going to end badly at all. Evidently, you have to give consent, but, you know, ish. um so the invite um only platform works similar to tiktok with a scrollable video feed instead of duets or stitches users record short clips that others can transform into new ai generated videos with consent each invite gives access to the app plus four additional invitations to share with others lauren here's what i actually love about this well first of all it's invite only now and you can only create up to 10 second videos and you can you can depict yourself and your friends with permission in multiple different ways.

17:24But what I love here is the idea where it's one feed that you know is all AI generated and you go to that and you can be scrolling through that content like you would any other content, but you, again, with the knowledge that none of this is real. And I think this could be an interesting adoption for other social platforms. So there's been all this hand-wringing about how are we going to decide what's real and what's not real in the future? How are we going to differentiate shade between fake news and non-fake news when it looks like it's coming from a real person that you know and trust with their voice and more.

17:58And I think if there's any kind of technology that could detect whether something is AI generated or not, and then just stick it into the AI feed of that platform, I think that could really have some benefits for alleviating a lot of that concern. Not all of it, there'll be ways to work around it. And if you like export the posts, to other social platforms. That could raise some concerns. But I think at its core, it's an interesting thing to consider about having a separate AI feed on these types of networks. It's just like, it's so, it's so, listen, one day my entire personality will not be the summary term pretty, but we're still in it.

18:39And so the point is, is that I get surfaced a lot of content right now as it relates to that show and the memes of this and that. And there's, of course, Team Conrad, Team Jeremiah, and the guy who plays Conrad, he's the one who's like just totally broken out and i'm scrolling the other day and i see this video and he famous like famously but he he has a girlfriend and like but you know whatever and of course people are trying to make it that he's with the girl on the show and he's definitely not and all the press that he does he's very close like you can see that he's very much not trying to like insinuate there's anything going on like he's being very respectful and this and that and i see this video the other day and it's him talking being like so i made these rules with my girlfriend and i won't do this and i won't do that and i'm watching this and it's cutting whatever and then It literally took me a minute to be like, this is fucking AI.

19:22And it was his voice. It was it. But I was like, there's no. But the only reason that I knew that, not because it indicated it anywhere, not because I thought that the technology was bad, is because I have come from the media world and I'm positive that he would have never done this. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's the only reason. But if I were just some, you know, common, you know, just a normie that had no media background, I would have thought he did this. And it wasn't to say that it was so bad, but he's never said that. any of this so it is bad and so it's just it's just kind of a really and again i feel like i'm fairly sophisticated in that and that kind of stuff and i like and i it took me a minute it took me like you know because i was just because why also because you're kind of like doom scrolling and you're not really paying attention and then it gets burned in your brain and you're just like well this person obviously and it's you know like it's not that harmful so whatever but it's like if you actually didn't say this or do this you don't want anybody to i don't know and also the way the human brain works if it looks and feels real in that moment you kind of don't remember that you don't remember that it's not real a hundred percent you don't remember like it's it's it's really fucked up so i'm i don't know i'm becoming a a voluntary like luddite in my old age so i'm just like can we just think so if it was on a separate ai feed of the summer i turned pretty you sure sure but my point is is that it's going to be taken advantage of and it's not going to just live there and so that's and yes i get their consent and that they're done and in all these things but right now today it's just not necessarily the case which is kind of terrifying yes um additionally because we don't have enough short form apps um doordash is rolling out a creator program for short form videos with ai features dine and rewards i mean let's go so first of all when i first read this i was like hashtag things no one needs right it's like an like an ai short form video whatever creator program at DoorDash that's what I go to my food delivery services but then I was like everybody's doing food reviews yeah you might as well do food reviews on the app with which I can buy the food because I'm a big DoorDash user oh my god the other day the guy was so stoned he delivered it first to like a different and then my neighbor saw I mean it was so bad normally DoorDash I have a great experience it was bad so initially I was kind of like whatever but I was like they should own all the food reviews and it should be there.

21:37And then there should be an integration. And then I can I can order the tie, the pot, the pad tie and then call it a day. So I'm actually not mad at this one. And so do you think as you're perusing DoorDash or Uber Eats or Grubhub or whatever, you would click on short form videos? Well, I'll give you an example. There's a guy I think it's called What Kev Eats or something like that. And he does mostly in L.A., you know, this guy, but he travels to and it's always in his car. And he's I don't know. I love this guy. Like he just takes these bites and he's dipping it in the sauce and whatever. And he's eating like, not all street food.

22:05Like sometimes it's like, he did this one series where it was like trying all chain steak restaurants and like, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's like, he's a guy that I would, he actually, and I actually downloaded it. It's called like Biter. He invested in or is a part of, in some regard, this app that's like basically trying to do exactly this. But it's like, they should do a deal with what Kev eats and have him on DoorDash. And they They should have like ambassadors that are really legit because that's the thing. There's legit food guys like him that I would love to like be like, what does Kev think about this?

22:36But where's the best pad thai? You know, I keep thinking pad thai. I'll have to order pad thai. And it'd be interesting if the internal then ad sales networks of these apps could then sell higher placement of videos from creators that are promoting their restaurants. It could get interesting all around. All right, Josh, do you have any uploads or downloads? I have an upload. You and I are both going to be at VidSummit next week in Dallas. We're going to be doing the podcast from there. VidSummit is a conference that was in L.A. for a while, and in the last few years it's been in Dallas. I went, I think, for the first time last year, the first Dallas one.

23:14And what's interesting about it, it's kind of the conference itself is a little bit of just like how to hack YouTube kind of a thing. but the actual like attendees i think are what makes it great because it's like for folks that can't like necessarily make it to like a vidcon or something like that you're dealing with like dells which is like obviously a sort of less expensive city and centrally located and so you're getting a lot of really interesting southern midwestern kind of creators that are really like a lot of them are they don't live and work within a community of creators and so it's really nice to see people come together i still remember last year i met this woman she's like lemons to lemonades i think is her um you know her youtube and she does flipping of there's so many people doing like you know flipping of facebook market market like furniture and stuff like that and it's a huge like i don't say industry but a huge like vertical now in in in the space and a lot of those kind of folks go and um yeah i'm really excited to go and see all the people that's you know josh's gonna go to the house it's exciting i'm super excited especially because the type of people that are there.

24:15These are all operators. These are all craftspeople that happen to be on YouTube. And so the kinds of conversations you overhear are like, I remember last time I was there, a group of individuals and one big YouTuber were talking about their click-through rates. He was like, yo, dude, on this video, I had like a 74 % click-through rate. And they're like, yo, what'd you do, bro? And they were high-fiving each other and trying to figure it out. But it's that kind of conversation and talk where they get really granular into the details. It's not a fan convention. It's a real like how do you make a business work on YouTube with both a video and like doing other probably side hustles and stuff like that.

24:51So yeah, no, I'm psyched to go and I'll be there. Which airline are you traveling there, Lauren? I think I'm traveling American. I'm traveling American too, but here's my upload. If we were traveling Delta, we would be able to watch some YouTubers on the way. Truth. Tell us more about that, Josh. So Delta has inked a partnership between itself and YouTube that will bring a curated selection of YouTube content to Delta Seatback screens. It started on September 25th. It was something they teased at the CES trade show in January. And now it's up and running. To be clear, this isn't the first time that there have been creators in airplanes.

25:30When Virgin America first launched, it had this huge push where it had like Felicia Day, Geek and Sundry, a bunch of web series. Well, they did also, their safety video was with... Todrick Hall. Todrick. I was like, oh, I love Todrick. It was so good. Yes. And so there was this little moment in time led by Virgin where they were really embracing creators and creators were becoming part of the in-flight experience. So a decade later, creators are back and you can watch them at 35 ,000 feet. I think what'll be interesting here is to see and know like which creators get selected. does that really do anything for their kind of like recall viewership is it just a status symbol are you gonna be watching mr beast on the person's screen what's the monetization for for the creators i mean are they gonna show ads exactly all up in the air who knows oh my god look at that pun up in the air get it i don't think you didn't even know you did that did you i always know i do that all right josh i think we did it lauren i think that's it i'll see you actually in Dallas next week.

26:30I mean, looking forward to it, Joshua. And if not there, I mean, I'll see you there. Yeah, I'll be. Also on Creator Upload. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Today's show is produced by Lauren Schnipper, Joshua Cohen, that's me, and Adam Conner. It's edited by Adam Conner too. Original music is by London Bridge. You can check him out on Instagram at London Bridge Music. Make sure you subscribe to Creator Upload right here on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, as well as Spotify or wherever you're listening. While you're there, give us a rating and leave us a comment. If you want to talk this up at info at creatorupload.com If you like our show, recommend it to a friend If you love it, just tell everyone Thanks for listening to Creator Upload And we will be back next week