← Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocoe
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CocoMoco
On Friday, December 13, a federal appeals court in D.C. declined TikTok's appeal to temporarily ban the block of TikTok, which would go into effect on January 19 of 2025. This could be blocked by the Supreme Court, but that is unlikely as this is a conservative majority. Plus the ban is bipartisan. This does not mean that TikTok will poof into thin air when every American wakes up on January 19, but rather it would be like what happened to vine, where the app can no longer be updated or downloaded on smartphones based in America. There is a case where an American company could buy TikTok and some have expressed interest such as Oracle. But the problem is that the Beijing based owner ByteDance will most likely not sell. And why should they? They created a really great app that toppled Silicon Valley and its monopoly on social media and technology. They forced every American social media app we grew to know and love, from YouTube to Instagram to Snapchat, to get better and more competitive and not be complacent in what they were known for as apps. They pushed American platforms to create an algorithm that prioritized showing users new and unique creators every single day, instead of allowing the few creators and brands and celebrities at the top to keep a chokehold on attention spans and algorithms. Before I get further into this episode about why I think TikTok's magic is gone whether a ban happens or not, I do want to preface by saying that my heart goes out to the 7,000 US based employees of ByteDance that will suffer the most if the app is gone. They will lose their jobs at a time where the tech and social media industry has been experiencing record numbers of layoffs since COVID in 2020 and an integration of AI that jeopardizes the new hiring process as well. You never want someone to lose their job and that is 100% one of the main reasons that I hope TikTok stick around or sells in America. But Even then, if TikTok does sell to a US company, mergers are often when the largest amount of employees are laid off at a company. So it seems for TikTok and the US based employees, they are right now in a lose lose situation. Today's episode of Ahead of The curve with CocoMoco will be about the impending ban of TikTok that for the first time in four years of this, being threatened, actually feels real this time. Since most people who listen to my podcast AKA you guys the Coconuts are brilliant creators and brand owners, artists, marketing professionals, I'm going to dedicate this episode to everything that you need to know before TikTok is banned come January 19th. Where should you take your audience and how can you do it? Why you should still jump ship from TikTok even if it doesn't get banned if that's your biggest audience like me. And then I'm going to talk about what type of platform I think is going to replace TikTok and users attention in the next five year cycle of social media from 2025 to 2030 as audiences crave something new whether TikTok is around or not. That will be exclusively at the end for paying members of the substack@cocomoco.substack.com as always, thank you guys for making my substack a best seller. I've never run an ad on this podcast in the two years that I've had it. I've had people reach out. I've turned down every single ad brand deal because I hate when podcasts have a million ads and they're all the same ads. So I hope that you guys appreciate that. And part of the reason that I'm going to be able to sustain myself as a creative when my TikTok income isn't here anymore is because thank goodness the social media gods I took a chance on Substance Stack earlier this year in June and the coconuts took a leap off the cliff with me into the unknown. And now I have a sub stock bestseller. So thank you guys. Let me know in the reviews on Apple and Spotify or in the comment section down below if you want me to dedicate a whole episode to the podcast bubble that I believe that has burst. The epidemic of bad podcasts that are littered with so many ads and commercials it drives me insane. I have not found a really good podcast that I love in so long because so much of that is I get recommended podcasts from people and then every single podcast that's somewhat established now will have so many ads that it makes it unlistenable. It feels like the podcast bubble has burst, but there is still an insatiable hunger from audiences for better, longer and more unique podcasts. No one is feeling that hunger anymore, which means it's room and time for a new generation of podcasters to fill that hunger as traditional podcasts are no longer able to provide good content without a million better help and frickin hello. Fresh ad reads every five minutes. So let me know in the reviews or on the comments if that is a podcast episode you'd be interested in. But back to the topic at hand. Everything that you need to know about the TikTok ban of 2025. As a creator, I'm not going to do the typical historical deep dive into TikTok and its importance in the social media stratosphere because you guys are smart and you were there for that. I'm guessing if you listen to my podcast, you make content or you're involved in a lot of content and you get it. I don't need to go into that. When I published my podcast episode two weeks ago titled Stop Trying to Be a Tick Tocker, I had no idea that the appeal court decision was just days away. My episode now, if you go back and listen, almost feels like a foreshadow than anything. So I will link that out in the show notes if you're interested and you haven't listened to it yet or watched it. But the reason I made that episode was it was inspired by the fact that I had just attended a TikTok creativity summit in Los Angeles hosted by TikTok. It was in mid November and I was appalled at how bad it was. That's why I did that episode. The goal of this summit was for them to give creators, some who had flown there, good insights and tools into how to grow as a creator on their platform in 2025. But it was all just kind of condescending advice, such as just post high quality content. They even at one point was like, you know, fact or myth? Like, put your thumb up, put your thumb down if you think it's a fact, up if you think it's a myth, down. Good lighting is good in videos. Fact. Yay. Good job. Like, are you kidding me? It's not like Blue's Clues. Like, we're grown adults, we know how to make a video. We're at the Tick Tock Creativity Summit. Like, even someone who's never posted a video, it was just so condescending. And it was. I think I was being hard on Tick Tock and I said this in the episode because I love Tick Tock and I think I hold them to a high standard and I even had conversations with my rep after about my thoughts on that seminar. So they know. But in hindsight, in hindsight, I wonder if the creativity summit that TikTok threw was so bad because they knew something we didn't. And in hindsight, I wonder now, what if they knew that the ban was not going to go in their favor. This appeal decision, this is all speaking in hypothetical and it almost makes sense now that the energy was that of someone who just put in their Two weeks at their job and they still have to show up. So you're like, going through the motions, but you don't really care that much. That would be the only thing that makes sense for why that creativity summit was so bad. For example, you guys, I RSVP'd ahead of time. I did the little fill out thing that said, like, what my interests were, and they were supposed to assign you different, like, breakout sessions to go into. So I drive all the way to LA from Long beach and in traffic, okay, I spent $31 on the fast track on the 110 freeway for the toll road to get there. And I was like, I'm going to treat myself like I'm going to have a cool seminar today. I'm going to learn about TikTok. I can go tell the coconuts what they need to do to get big on 2025 TikTok. And I show up and they're like, yeah, you don't have any, like, seminars. And I'm like, okay, so what do I do? They're like, after, like, the intro thing at noon, like, you can just leave. Like, I was like, really? Like, what the heck? So, yeah, it was so unorganized. And I'm lucky I wasn't someone who flew in for that and then was told that they forgot to sign me up for seminars. Okay, so that is something that happened. I've been let down by platforms, you guys. I also got invited to a Snapchat soiree starry night party. I was like, heck, yeah, I've gone to Snapchat parties, yada yada. I was excited. I went and got dressed at Nordstrom's. I was texting my good Judy's. I was like, hey, guys, like, who's going to the Snapchat party? Let's go together. Do tell me why. By the way, Snapchat emailed me and invited me. Like, they emailed me. It wasn't like I was a plus one. I didn't, you know, finagle my way onto the guest list. Like, they literally emailed me and were like, hey, Coco, do you want to go to this party? So I was like, yeah, sure, I'll go. And then they emailed me like a week later. And we're like, unfortunately, you cannot attend this party. It's for invited guests only. And I was like, wait, what? So then my manager emailed them, was like, hey, what happened? And we never heard back. So Snapchat and TikTok are on my hit list. But anyways, okay, back to the podcast. All right, so I think that the seminar was really bad in hindsight, because what I didn't know when I was there is that TikTok was about to go through their appeal court and it was not going to go in their favor. The TikTok ban, even if it doesn't go through the magic of the algorithm is completely gone. I can't remember the last time a new deserving creator found fame overnight on the app the way they did between 2020 and 2023. The only two creators that come to mind for me in 2024 that found success on the app that were not already established creators in Hollywood or New York City, having teams to support them would be Jules lebron from the Dummy or Trend and Risa Tisa from the who Did I Marry? Series. Those were this year. The fact that it is so far and few between just shows how monopolized the algorithm on TikTok has become. Now it's just monopolized with ads, TikTok shop, live battles, and the typical already famous TikTokers who built their platforms at the perfect time and have teams to support them. Now I will even get a thing that appears when I post a video on the bottom that says this video is outperforming. 70% of your other videos pay to promote it to more people. But you know, the gag is I posted that video 10 seconds ago. It doesn't have any views, so how would they not stop performing? It's not. They're literally fucking lying. They're lying. They're lying just to get people gassed up and then they want to pay money to promote the video. That's shady. TikTok. That is so shit. That makes me so mad because not that I'm going to fall for it, but I hate when platforms take advantage of the desire that people have on social media that they can make it that it's anyone's game. That's why I do what I do. I always say my mission in life is to make people feel seen and heard. And I have been drawn to social media and the magic of it since I was in middle school making a MySpace. And I hate when platforms no longer let that happen organically. But now it's pay to play because then only the top people that have money and free time and resources are the ones that are going to be able to play. So that is something that TikTok has been doing. And again, I think that it is a sign that the for you page is no longer fostering creativity and it's no longer this place where trends start and grow, but rather the for your page is just a way for TikTok to squeeze every last century out of the American audience before it's gone in a month. And I hate being so pessimistic because as you guys know, I've loved and champion TikTok since back in 2019 when no one believed in it in the corporate world. But I think that this is why this letdown feels even more painful for me, because I hold TikTok to a high standard, because they've really changed the fabric of social media and algorithms for the better, but now they're the one falling behind. So even if TikTok sticks around and sells, that would mean they have to reconfigure the algorithm since it is owned and operated by ByteDance. And the whole national security issue is that the algorithm is almost too advanced and understands the American audience too well. But the algorithm is what makes TikTok special for so long. Scroll for 10 seconds on YouTube shorts or Instagram reels or Snapchat Discover page and you will notice that the videos are very surface level, whereas the videos that usually are suggested to you on the TikTok for you page are very niche and very true to your interests and your identity, not just whatever sound or trend is popular at the moment. So if TikTok sells, it is possible that the algorithm will be like reels or shorts in the first few months of introducing that new feature to those apps, which even years later, Reels and shorts and Snap Discover, et cetera, the algorithms still aren't great. So as a creator, you might notice this in the comments you get on TikTok versus when you upload that same video to reels or shorts. It's like they don't really know how to show that video to the right audience. It would be the same exact way if TikTok sells to an American company. Let's say TikTok is able to halt the January 19th ban based on some sort of legal loophole, right? There is a case, and I'm not a lawyer, where a judge somewhere, which happened before too, can say, you know, it's unconstitutional, I'm blocking the ban. The damage has already been done whether it gets banned or not. The last year I've seen so many brands pull out of brand partnerships with creators on TikTok, or opt to only run ads on Reels and YouTube Shorts with creators because they don't really see the point in investing into the TikTok app if it's going to be gone soon. And I don't blame them. Why would they dedicate $1 million of their marketing budget on a platform that is hanging on by a thread? Why would, you know, let's say Chevy cars? Why would they want to do an in depth ad campaign on TikTok to grow their account to a million followers? If Tick Tock is going to be gone in a month, it doesn't make sense. They're not going to do it. So even if Tick Tock sells or delays the ban, the trust with American companies has already been broken. And I do want to add that that part is not Tick Tock's fault. It's not their fault that they've had an uphill battle in America for almost being too good at their job in the algorithm. But it's still a Sad fact for TikTok dominant creators like myself is that now when I'm doing brand deals, or even if I'm consulting with brands on their marketing, I'm advising them, don't put money on TikTok. It's not worth it. It could be gone. And that seems to be a sentiment that a lot of brands agree with and already understand going into it. So as a creator, what should you do in the next four weeks to make the adjustment as easy as possible? Well, plot twist. No matter how many followers you have anywhere, it's not going to be easy. Transitions are hard. But the one reason I love transitions like this, like when vine was gone or when if this happens with TikTok, et cetera, is this is when we get as close to the playing field being even as possible because new apps come around and it's like that hunger that new creators had on TikTok in 2020 of like, maybe I can do this too. So I want to add, it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be new. And to me that's exciting. One creator named Francesca Ramsey made a TikTok about this titled the TikTok Ban in the Death of Vine. And in this video, Ramsey talks about how a lot of TikTokers are not going to be able to make the leap from short form to long form like YouTube or podcasting. And I agree with this being interesting enough to keep someone's attention for 30 plus minutes versus 30 seconds is totally different. On top of that, TikTokers were able to grow to millions of followers because users were introduced to hundreds of new creators in a single sitting. But with YouTube and podcasting, you might only find one new show that you enjoy enough to listen to again and again, maybe once a week if you're lucky. The discoverability is different and the stamina is not something a lot of short form creators can keep up with. This is the point in the creator space where the slow turtle for the first time since 2020 is getting finally in front of the rabbit in the marathon. Firstly, if you have a lot of mutuals that you are happy to have connected with on TikTok. I have so many amazing mutuals on my TikTok that I'm sad to lose, but I will start there. If you're a creator, post a friends only video encouraging them to follow you over to Instagram. Tell them to maybe comment their Instagram so you can follow them as well and you guys can stay in touch. This is kind of the part of high school where you write in everyone's yearbook, let's hang out this summer. But it won't actually happen unless you make an effort to get their phone number or get a way to stay in touch with them, so it's up to you to make that effort. Secondly, be shameless in promoting your other socials on your TikTok. It doesn't matter right now if you look weird on TikTok promoting yourself and your new projects because the app might be gone soon, so that digital footprint is going to disappear. If you've ever wanted to try a new format on short form like TikTok and you've always been afraid that it's not going to do well, now's the time to try it because the app's going to be gone soon anyways, so no one's going to see the flops if it flops. Even Tyler, the creator, once said in an interview that you have to be annoying and promote the hell out of yourself because no one else will. This is one of those times where I am giving you permission as your content creator cheerleader to be annoying as hell. If someone says hey doo doo doo, you're being really annoying promoting your Instagram and your YouTube and your podcast right now, I'm going to unfollow you. You can just blame it on me. Be like, that's fine. Cocomoko forced me to do this. I'm sorry. And that's okay. Tag me, I'll stand up for you. Figure out what different value you can bring to each platform. You don't want your platforms to be just copy and paste of your best TikToks. While that is a good growth strategy, what does help with growing and exposure in every single platform is Figuring out what you can do differently on each platform. This is how you get an audience to follow you elsewhere. If someone follows your TikTok and you're just posting your TikToks over to Instagram as reels, and you're not posting photos or infographics or daily in the life things, then they don't have to follow your Instagram because they Already follow your TikTok, unless you make it clear that you might not be posting on TikTok anymore when it's gone. So really figure out what you can bring differently to each platform. Maybe even if you're a visual person. Make a list, write it down. What do you do on Instagram differently? What do you do on YouTube differently? What do you do on maybe a podcast or substack? And then as you're promoting each new thing, let your audience know what unique value they can get from each platform. For me, my YouTube is exclusively for my Middle Row interviews, where I interview rising music stars. I have an interview with Adela from Pop Star Academy coming up I'm really excited about. And then my Instagram is where I share photos and stories of my daily happenings, plus an occasional infographic to promote, maybe a podcast episode or my substack, which some of my, like, kind of infographic posts on Instagram have gotten up to 100,000 likes, which is so crazy. And that's something that I don't think would perform well on a TikTok or on a YouTube. So Instagram is a place for me to experiment with those still images. And then for my substack is where people can dive deepest with me with my Friday trend reports, extended podcast episodes, and the occasional free Deep dive article. So each platform of mine has a different value proposition. Someone who follows and subscribes to my substack because they want the marketing advice. They might not be interested in seeing my daily selfies or whatever on Instagram, and that's okay. Someone that might be interested in the daily selfies on Instagram might not want to read my marketing Deep Dives on substack. And that's totally okay. So TikTok used to be where I posted the most because they made it really easy to film and edit. I used to call TikTok the litmus test. For a lot of creators there. You could test a couple videos, see which one performed best, and then copy and paste those clips over to reels and shorts and Snapchat and Pinterest. But now I'm going to have to find somewhere else to run my litmus test. I made a TikTok about this, no pun intended. But the app that's going to replace TikTok will be one that makes filming and editing content easier than all of the other platforms. If you try filming and editing a short form video on YouTube, Instagram or Snapchat, you will have a newfound appreciation for Tick Tock and its interface because it's literally like pulling teeth. I won't say what platform I wrote, and I wrote about this in my you had a good run Tick Tock article on Substack, but I was at a competing platform, one of the big three earlier this year, and they wanted us to post a short form video and I filmed it in their office and I was just trying to add the text on screen and then have it like disappear after the first three seconds on screen. And I asked one of the employees, I'm like, hey, like, how do you edit it so the text can just be off screen now? And they didn't have the technology to do that and they were like, honestly, just edit and like record your video on TikTok and then download it and then post it to our platform. So that was coming from one of the big platforms. So just keep that in mind that it is why TikTok was successful. Yes, it was because of the algorithm, but it was also because they made posting videos easier than ever. So it is up to you to step up your posting on all of the other platforms though. So it's not just copy and paste from TikTok. Truly figure out what unique value you bring to each platform. And something else you can do is maybe change your TikTok bio for the last month to encourage people to follow you on whatever app you are prioritizing. I'm sure a lot of fans are going to start looking at their favorite creators accounts to try and follow them across platforms. So if you don't have your top platforms linked out, do that now. Maybe even make it your caption of every video until the ban happens. Who cares if it gets shadow banned? I don't. I think TikTok's got bigger fish to fry now. But you can say something like, if you've enjoyed my content, find me on Instagram and YouTube to keep the party going. I'll probably be testing things like that on my TikToks as well. So as always, figure out what makes you unique. It's corny, but truly think about it. I promise if you look back on your TikTok days, you never went viral when you were copying another big trend you only went viral when you brought something extra unique to a trend or you did something completely different and added to a conversation something that no one else had said before. Sometimes it's the videos where you didn't even think that they were going to go viral that do, and that's because you're just being yourself. You're not trying to be someone else in those moments. Look at your top performing videos and figure out what the common denominator was. How can you replicate that essence on all of the other platforms? When people fail to transfer their audiences over to other platforms, it's often because they lose that essence. It only shows through on TikTok because that is where you can kind of shitpost the most with being yourself without feeling like you have to meet a certain algorithm or trend or appear a certain way. Instagram now lets you post trial reels so those videos will not be sent out to your typical Instagram followers and only people outside of your audience. This is a great tool if you want to ship posts and find your unique audience outside of TikTok the way that you maybe did when you started your TikTok before anyone from work or your personal life found it. The videos you make that will go the most viral are not going to be for your friends and family. Think about it like this. Are you the same exact person at work as you are at home or with friends? Probably not, and that is okay. Being good at your job requires a different communication style and thought style than your typical interpersonal relationship. And social media is the same way. If you treat your Instagram like how you interact with your small circle of friends and family, then you probably won't grow or find the audience that is really interested in you. Just like if you treat your work like you do your home, you're probably not going to get promotions. I personally am excited for this new transition because I think TikTok reached a point where the gold of the gold rush had been picked over, the land had been pillaged. It feels exciting that we might have a new horizon where new creators can rise just like that. Hope we all felt for the first time in a long time in early 2020 with this new app. We don't know for sure what the new app will be that will replace people's attention, or if it could be a legacy app that is already around. But I do think that it needs to be a disruptor. I will get back to my thoughts on what platform is going to replace TikTok and why. I definitely don't think it's going to be something like Clapper or Lemonade in the extended version of this substack. But to wrap up the first segment, which is where should you take your audience and why? Let's go over the different platforms and what they fit for different creators so you can figure out what type of creator you are and where you should jump. So if you're very visual but a short form creator, then Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts are great for you. The creators that grow the most on short form algorithms like shorts and reels are makeup, food, dance, any type of visual creator, like even DIY gaming, because people can enjoy those videos whether they speak the same language of you or not. Sorry, my dyslexia is popping through with a makeup video or a dance you can lip sync to a trending song even if it's not the language that you personally speak. One of the most viral videos during the Golden Age of TikTok in 2020 was something called Is It Cake? And it was a compilation video. You might remember it, but it would feature items that look like a croc or cabbage, but then someone would take a huge knife and cut down the center revealing it to be cake. One YouTube short of this has 16 million views on YouTube and it even inspired a Netflix baking show literally called Is It Cake? The reason that this went so viral is because you can enjoy the content no matter what language you speak. I believe this is also why so many Viners who jumped to Instagram in the late 2010s would do comedy skits that involved huge facial expressions and sometimes even awful racial stereotypes, AKA low hanging fruit, because they had to capture an audience and tell a story that was very surface level without any nuance or language innuendos. It had to be dumbed down to the point of insult so that they could reach a wide audience outside of the people that speak the same language as them. If you're a deep dive critter like myself, then you probably need to get onto podcasting or YouTube ASAP. If you consistently went viral for doing TikToks where you spoke directly to the camera for over a minute, then this is you. It will be hard getting the muscle of talking to a camera for a long period of time, like 30 or more minutes. Especially if you're used to just doing three minute TikToks that you could script out in a way that felt natural to you. But one way you can think about it, this is how it helped me getting into podcasting at first is I just pretended I was making 10 three minute TikToks on a certain topic and then that kind of helped me get the muscle of talking to myself for 30 minutes. It's going to be very awkward at first, and for me, I've been doing this two years. It's still awkward, but it's a different muscle and that's okay. I am personally desperate for new, good Deep Dive podcasts that have yet to be overrun by BetterHelp and HelloFresh ads. So I'm personally begging the coconuts you guys listening to be the ones to usher in that new generation of podcasts. If you're listening on Substack or you want to leave a review on Apple or Spotify, please let me know the name of your podcast that you're launching or that you currently have so I have new recommendations. Or you can do it in the comments of this substack. Spotify is even trying to get into the video space themselves, so there's no better time to launch a video podcast now. If you enjoy doing Deep Dive think pieces on TikTok, but you hated the filming part being on camera, then Substack might be for you. Written articles are a great way to dive deep with an audience without having to worry about if you charged your ring light, if you did your makeup that day, if that guy is going to start mowing his lawn right next to your window as you begin filming. I have been learning more about the Substack app myself and scrolling the home feed to see what articles go viral. I have been restacking some that catch my eye. The Substack audience is hungry for Deep Dive think pieces, so now is your time if that is up your alley. On top of that you can monetize your sub stack, which I think will be the future of being a creator. Creators have such a distrust now with free platforms and I believe they will go directly to their audience to fund creative pursuits in small bursts versus relying on far and few between algorithms and brand deals that punish you for doing brand deals Anyways, so now let's talk about why the magic of TikTok is gone, regardless of it if it does get banned or not. I wrote a free article in Substack titled you had a good Run TikTok, if you want to read it. I wrote this once. The news of the appeal decision not going TikTok's way came out last week. For the first time in four years of a band being threatened, it finally felt real and tangible. This time around. I wrote about how TikTok is running a crazy amount of ads on their algorithm right now. I will edit in a screen recording on the side here if you're watching on substack. But I opened up my phone and began screen recording and one out of every three to five scrolls on the for your page was an ad, not just like a creator doing a paid promotion, but like a full on commercial on the for you page. That is crazy even for TikTok. To me it means that there's blood in the water. TikTok is no longer focusing on curating a unique and creative algorithm for their creators and users, but instead they are really focused on just milking every last dollar that they can out of the American audience. So it to me seems that they don't really have a ton of foresight right now. Something that they really made them unique the last five years was their foresight, their ability to push out new creators, to take chances on new creators. They're not really doing that right now. There's blood in the water and they're really, really just trying to push out ads, push out TikTok shop, push out TikTok live battles to get the last dollar that they can out of the American audience. It's really a shame because for the last five years TikTok made virality accessible. Their algorithm really thrived by taking a chance on creators that had zero followers every single day. Every other platform required that you had ample free time, technology and knowledge to even have a singular chance at going viral. Often after years of posting. Now the only videos that go viral on the for your page are ads and TikTok shop and lives or recaps of the same drama that they've been rehashing for the past few weeks. My feed recently has been overtaken with videos about the TikTok live battler and self proclaimed inmate hopper Ashley Trevino, who, who's done things like Flash herself on a live with minors watching, including her two teenage daughters and making fun of teenage murder victims of one of her inmate boyfriends. The algorithm has always been chaotic, but now it's truly switched over to the lowest of hanging fruit. And I truly believe, I truly believe that TikTok is no longer fostering a healthy algorithm. I believe TikTok could have had more public grace and goodwill and even profit margins to fight this ongoing ban for a bit longer if they had leaned into long form video when they had the chance. TikTok instead has suffered death by a thousand trends they were not able to monetize because you can never put a 30 second ad on a 10 second video. The only long form videos they promoted were live streams, but those became low hanging fruit. The videos that go viral are the ones of people willing to do the most heinous things to themselves or those around them. They oftentimes censored and gave community guidelines violations on the for your page for the most mundane topics. And in my opinion they were seemingly harsher to POC and LGBT creators or creators that covered those topics. I mentioned in an episode a few weeks ago how at one of my corporate jobs TikTok asked us to post historical videos for Black History Month in February one year we posted a video, a historical video that was fact checked about Malcolm X. And even though this account had hundreds of thousands of followers and it was verified and it was a media account, the video capped at 200 views and we thought it was very odd. I had this strategist the next day take that video down and re upload it. The same exact video, but I had them just get rid of the hashtag Malcolm X in the caption. That was it. That Same video got 2 million plus views within a day and the only thing that they removed was the mention of Malcolm X. I also received a notification once on my own personal CocoMoco account that I had violated a community guidelines for using Chapelroan as a hashtag. Like it literally said you. You know violated a community guidelines for using Chapelroan. Odd. I had never gotten that notification for hashtag Olivia Rodrigo, hashtag SABRinaCarpenter. Why would Chapel Roan be censored? What makes her different from those other pop stars that I had talked about makes you think TikTok let a video spreading clear misinformation about Camille Cabello carrying A quote unquote $25,000 ICE purse to the Met Gala get 9 million views in a day. But my video dispelling that misinformation where I literally spoke directly to her stylist who told me the exact amounts that the ice purse cost where they got it on Etsy for 30 something dollars. My video started to go immediately viral but then capped at 20,000 views. But when I reposted that same video to Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts, it got millions of views. So why was TikTok the only platform that stopped the spread of my video calling out another TikToker for misinformation that got 10 million views? By the way, spreading deliberate misinformation is a community guidelines violation, but this creator was able to do it just fine. 10 million views? Odd, right? It's because it was sensational. TikTok is harsh to you as a creator if you violate a community guideline. Again, even harsher in my opinion to POC creators and LGBT plus creators. In my opinion it can feel like you are shadow banned in on timeout for months. Yet they let people sell sex toys on the TikTok shop homepage with absolutely no issue. So if you're making them money, that's okay. It's very disorienting and it's very unfair. They lost trust with their audience. The last time that I felt hope as a creator on TikTok was when Risa Tisa went viral last February for her who the F Did I Marry series. It was long form and and Risa was using the 10 minute feature on TikTok. She skyrocketed to overnight fame as a result. But since then TikTok has not pushed long form videos on their algorithm. Instead they rely on Apple dance trends and people saying demure over and over again. It stiffened creativity on the app. I don't think it's any of the creators faults who created this these trends at all. Instead I'm very excited for the creators who fan fame this year using those trends over and over. But I do blame the algorithm and TikTok for no longer allowing new ideas and thoughts and long form videos to take off on their platform every week. New TikTokers would become famous between 2020 and 2023. Now it feels that only a handful of creators find fame this year and it's because TikTok died a death of a thousand trends. In a perfect world, TikTok won't get banned come January 19th. But like I said earlier, the tug of war between ByteDance and the American government over this platform has done damage that feels irreversible for creators and brands. No American or Western brands trust that TikTok is a reliable platform anymore. The budgets are being redirected back towards Instagram and YouTube. Even those platforms have their flaws. They still have withstood the test of time. I have 1/10 of the following on Instagram compared to TikTok, but I make way more money for brand deals that I run on Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. And brands see Instagram reels as a long term investment in a way that they no longer see TikTok and TikTok is no longer a necessity for their brand identity. So if you are a creator you have to jump ship before it sinks. Moments like these are where creators careers are broken or made. This is what separates the Flash in a pan Viner from the creator careers that took off on platforms like YouTube and Instagram when vine ended. We are in that same bubble bursting right now. Adaptation and flexibility is the number one trait that a creator must have if they want a career. Not a year. The moment you think that you figured out a platform is the moment that it will drastically change. Never become an expert, always be a student. I am personally excited for what this new chapter will bring. Audiences will now have hours of daily screen time that they need to put somewhere else. How exciting that the playing field might be even on a new platform for the first time in five years. If you could go back in time and jump on TikTok in 2020, would you? If you could go back in time and jump on YouTube in 2015, would you? We are about to turn to a new blank page of the creator history book. The ones that write the next chapter are the ones that adapt quickly and are decisive and excited. Know what you are good at and figure out how to bring that to the next app before everyone else. Now I'm going to talk about what platforms I think could replace audiences attention spans. As TikTok fades out in the extended portion of this episode, you can become a member of my best selling substack@cocomoco.substack.com to unlock this and every extended version of this podcast. And if you're already a paying coconut, thank you so much for supporting me in my creator journey, especially during scary times like this financially. And I will see those of you on the other side.