An Opinion Piece: Tiktok Music

The recent release of Tiktok star Addison Rae Easterling’s song Obsessed has been a point of contention on the internet since its surprise release a little more than two weeks ago. The song has already garnered tons of popularity - it’s been played over 5 million plays on Spotify and used more than 100,000 times on Tiktok. Easterling was even invited to perform on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show a few days ago. 

The song’s fast popularity is largely due to Easterling’s status as the second most followed person on Tiktok, with more than 79 million followers. Her rise to Tiktok fame began with a viral video of her and her mother Sheri dancing together, and from there, she began amassing followers. She quickly took advantage of her burgeoning platform, dipping her feet into various ventures, including creating music and co-founding her own makeup line, Item Beauty. Many other Tiktokers have done the same, taking advantage of their fame to explore different niches, most of which are normally difficult to break into. 

For example, gaining notoriety in the music industry if one is virtually unknown, with no connections, requires an immense amount of passion for music as well as a good amount of talent. Making music as a famous Tiktoker, though, is a whole different story. The unique thing about Tiktokers is their pre-established platform. People like Easterling and Dixie D'amelio already have a very large fan base, so they are guaranteed listeners even before the music is created. This is why the quality of their music doesn’t exactly have to be exceptional. The burden of wowing any listener that may stumble across your music and hooking them in is no longer there because their fame is pretty much a built-in hook already. 

As a result of this phenomenon, we get songs like Obsessed or Dixie D'amelio's Be Happy. Both songs have somewhat uninspired lyrics and generic vocals, and though they aren’t unbearable to listen to, they are missing the components that make up a good quality song. Moving into the music industry is difficult, and for that reason, it shouldn’t be done with mediocrity even if one has the resources that Easterling has at her disposal. In my eyes, it is unfair that Easterling, with her absolutely limited music experience is able to perform such an average song on Jimmy Fallon’s show, purely because of her Tiktok fame.

There were other, glaring issues with the show as well. There was a segment where Easterling “teaches” Jimmy Fallon famous Tiktok dances - none of which were even created by her. Most of them were choreographed by Black creators on the app, and all the original creators received was a slight nod in the video description that only shows up if “SHOW MORE” is clicked. A similar issue happened last year when Charli D'amelio received all the credit for Jalaiah Harmon’s Renegade dance.

Here is a list of the talented creators for reference:
Do It Again - tiktok.com/@noahschnapp 
Savage Love - tiktok.com/@jazlynebaybee
Corvette Corvette - tiktok.com/@yvnggprince
Laffy Taffy - tiktok.com/@flyboyfu
Savage - tiktok.com/@kekejanjah
Blinding Lights - tiktok.com/@macdaddyz
Up - tiktok.com/@theemyanicole
Fergalicious - tiktok.com/@thegilberttwins

Addison Rae is certainly a great dancer and multitalented, but her debut song is somewhat disappointing.