抖音海外版TikTok為何能取得成功？

About an hour after downloading TikTok, the popular video-sharing app, I experienced a bizarre sensation, one I haven’t felt in a long time while on the internet. The knot in my chest loosened, my head felt injected with helium, and the corners of my mouth crept upward into a smile.

下載流行視頻分享應(yīng)用程序TikTok(海外版抖音)的一個小時后，我經(jīng)歷了一種奇怪的感覺，這是我在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上長久沒有感受到的。胸口的結(jié)放松了，腦袋里仿佛充滿了氦氣，嘴角向上蠕動，開始微笑。

Was this … happiness? 這是......幸福嗎?

TikTok — a quirky hybrid of Snapchat, the defunct video app Vine and the TV segment “Carpool Karaoke” — is a refreshing outlier in the social media universe.There are no ads. There’s no news, unless you count learning about viral dance crazes. There are few preening Instagram models hawking weight-loss tea, and a distinct lack of crazy uncles posting Infowars clips.

TikTok——一個集合了Snapchat、現(xiàn)已不存在的視頻應(yīng)用Vine和“搭車卡拉OK”電視節(jié)目的奇特混合體——在社交媒體領(lǐng)域是一個令人耳目一新的異類。沒有廣告。沒有新聞，除非你認為了解那些風(fēng)靡一時的舞蹈熱潮也算新聞。這里沒什么精心打扮的Instagram模特擺賣減肥茶，明顯看不到神經(jīng)兮兮的大叔發(fā)Infowars片段。

Instead, TikTok — a Chinese-made app that was known as Musical.ly until ByteDance, the Chinese internet conglomerate, acquired the company in 2017 and merged it with a video app it owned — has a simple premise. Users create short videos set to music, often lip-syncing along, dancing or acting out short skits. The app contains templates and visual effects to spice up the videos. There is also a live-streaming feature that allows users to send virtual “gifts” to their favorite creators, which can be bought with real money. The rest works like any other social app — followers, hashtags, likes and comments.

相反，TikTok——這款中國制造的應(yīng)用原本名叫Musical.ly，后來被中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭字節(jié)跳動于2017年收購，并與其擁有的一款視頻應(yīng)用融合——的設(shè)定很簡單。用戶創(chuàng)作配了音樂的短視頻，往往是對口型的假唱、跳舞或表演小品。應(yīng)用中有模板和視覺效果，以增加視頻的趣味性。它還有一個直播功能，允許用戶向他們喜歡的創(chuàng)作者發(fā)送虛擬“禮物”，可以用真錢購買。剩下的就和其他任何一種社交應(yīng)用沒什么區(qū)別了——關(guān)注者、話題標(biāo)簽、點贊和評論。

It doesn’t sound like much. But, somehow, it adds up to what might well be the only truly pleasant social network in existence.

這聽起來并不是什么不得了的事。但不知何故，它到最后成了一個可能是現(xiàn)存唯一真正令人愉悅的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

I feel comfortable making that call because I go on social networks for a living, and I have spent thousands of hours wading through an unholy slurry of Twitter spammers, Instagram scammers, teenage YouTube fascists and baby boomers whose brains have been turned to pudding by too many Facebook memes.

我之所以敢于做出這樣的論斷，是因為我以社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)為生，我花費幾千個小時跋涉在Twitter水軍、Instagram騙子、少年YouTube法西斯主義者和嬰兒潮一代的污穢池沼之中，他們的大腦已經(jīng)被太多的Facebook米姆變成了布丁。

TikTok has none of that. Instead, it’s that rarest of internet creatures: a place where people can let down their guards, act silly with their friends and sample the fruits of human creativity without being barraged by abusive trolls or algorithmically amplified misinformation. It’s a throwback to a time before the commercialization of internet influence, when web culture consisted mainly of harmless weirdos trying to make each other laugh.

TikTok完全沒有這些。相反，它是最稀有的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)生物：一個人們可以放下他們的防衛(wèi)，與朋友一起做出愚蠢行為，品嘗人類創(chuàng)造力的果實的地方，在這里無需被叫囂的噴子或算法放大的不實信息連番轟炸。這是對互聯(lián)網(wǎng)影響力商業(yè)化之前一段時間的回溯，那時的網(wǎng)絡(luò)文化主要由想逗人大笑的無害怪人組成。

“It’s a bit of an escape,” said Billy Mann, a TikTok creator who uses the platform to make comedy videos for his more than 650,000 followers.“It’s a safe haven for people that are seeing the world on fire and being like, ‘I need silliness,’” he said.

“這有點像逃避，”TikTok創(chuàng)作者比利·曼(Billy Mann)說道，他利用這個平臺為超過65萬的粉絲制作搞笑視頻。“對于那些看到世界水深火熱的人來說，這是一個安全的避風(fēng)港，就好像說，‘我需要愚蠢，’”他說。

TikTok’s earnest goofiness has turned off some skeptics. But it’s hard to argue with the numbers. The app recently passed six million users in the United States, according to a report from the market research firm Sensor Tower. As of Friday, it ranked No. 4 among free apps in Apple’s app store, ahead of Snapchat, Netflix and Facebook Messenger. Globally, the app, whose Chinese version is called Douyin, had 500 million monthly active users as of July, making it bigger than Twitter and about half the size of Instagram.

TikTok的誠懇傻氣已經(jīng)讓一些懷疑論者失去興趣。但數(shù)據(jù)是很難否認的。根據(jù)市場研究公司Sensor Tower的一份報告，該應(yīng)用的美國用戶最近超過了600萬。截至周五，它在Apple應(yīng)用程序商店中排名第四，領(lǐng)先于Snapchat、Netflix和Facebook Messenger。在全球范圍內(nèi)，截至7月份，該應(yīng)用的中文版抖音擁有5億每月活躍用戶，使其規(guī)模超過了Twitter，約為Instagram的一半。

Currently, TikTok makes money through virtual gift sales and brand collaborations, such as a Guess-sponsored “fashion takeover.” There are no ads inside the app, although the company's privacy policy leaves room for them in the future. TikTok, which is privately held, does not disclose financial information, but Sensor Tower estimates that it took in roughly $3.5 million in October.

目前，TikTok通過虛擬禮品銷售和品牌合作賺錢，例如Guess贊助的“時尚接管”。應(yīng)用內(nèi)沒有廣告，不過公司的隱私政策為未來打廣告留出了余地。TikTok是一家私營企業(yè)，不會公開財務(wù)信息，但Sensor Tower估計10月份它的收入約為350萬美元。

TikTok’s success has spawned legions of influencers, users with millions of followers and household-name status among teenagers. And it has propelled ByteDance, which also owns a suite of other social media and news apps, to a reported valuation of $75 billion, making it one of the most valuable start-ups in the world.

TikTok的成功催生了大批影響力人物，這些用戶擁有數(shù)百萬粉絲，在青少年中有著家喻戶曉的地位。它推動字節(jié)跳動的發(fā)展——這個公司還擁有其他的一系列社交媒體和新聞應(yīng)用程序，據(jù)報道估值為750億美元——使其成為世界上最有價值的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)之一。

TikTok’s global head of marketing, Stefan Heinrich, said in a statement that the company’s mission was to “capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge and moments that matter, directly from the mobile phone.”

TikTok的全球市場主管斯特凡·海因里希(Stefan Heinrich)在一份聲明中表示，該公司的使命是“直接從手機上捕捉和呈現(xiàn)世界的創(chuàng)意、知識和瞬間”。

In perhaps the clearest sign that TikTok is on to something, Facebook is trying to kill it. Last month, the company quietly released Lasso, a clunky clone that borrowed many of TikTok’s core features and even tried to siphon off some of its power users. Lasso got off to a slow start, and is now the 687th most downloaded photo and video app in the United States, according to the mobile data company AppAnnie. The executive leading the Lasso team, Brady Voss, left the company shortly after the app was released. (Facebook declined to comment, and Mr. Voss did not respond to a request for comment.)

也許最能說明TikTok大有前途的是，F(xiàn)acebook在試圖殺死它。上月，該公司悄然發(fā)布了Lasso，一個蹩腳的抄襲版本，借用了TikTok許多核心功能，甚至試圖吸走一些有影響力的用戶。根據(jù)移動數(shù)據(jù)公司AppAnnie的說法，Lasso起步緩慢，其下載量目前在美國照片和視頻類應(yīng)用中排名第687。應(yīng)用發(fā)布后不久，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)Lasso團隊的高管布雷迪·沃斯(Brady Voss)便離開了公司。(Facebook拒絕發(fā)表評論，沃斯未回應(yīng)置評請求。)

Before I go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way: If you’re reading this, you are almost certainly too old to feel at home on TikTok. The company declined to provide information about its users, but judging from what’s on the platform, the median TikTok user seems to hover in the midteens. TikTok is full of acne-studded faces, barely concealed tween angst and impenetrable youth-culture references. As far as I can tell, there is no way for adults to use it without feeling as if they are chaperoning a high school dance.

在進一步闡述前，咱們先明確一點：如果你正在讀這篇文章，那么你的年齡幾乎肯定已經(jīng)老到看不出TikTok有什么好。公司拒絕提供有關(guān)其用戶的信息，但從平臺上發(fā)布的內(nèi)容來看，TikTok用戶年齡中值似乎是十四五歲的樣子。TikTok上滿是布滿青春痘的面孔，幾乎不加掩飾的青少年焦慮，以及讓人一頭霧水的青年文化暗語。在我看來，成年人去使用它，免不了要覺得自己是陪孩子去參加高中舞會的監(jiān)護人。

Officially, TikTok users must be 13 or older to join. But the age-verification process is easy to circumvent, and while browsing the platform, I stumbled upon several videos starring people who appeared to be much younger. In its previous incarnation as Musical.ly, TikTok drew fire from some privacy advocates, who accused it of pushing the limits of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a law that prohibits the collection of certain types of information from users younger than 13.

正式層面上，TikTok用戶必須年滿13歲或以上才能加入。但年齡驗證程序很容易避過，而在瀏覽該平臺時，我偶然能看到不少視頻的主角年紀(jì)根本到不了13歲。在其前身Musical.ly中，TikTok曾招致一些隱私倡導(dǎo)者的攻擊，后者指責(zé)其正在挑戰(zhàn)《兒童網(wǎng)絡(luò)隱私保護法》(Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act)的極限，該法律禁止采集13歲以下用戶的某些類型的信息。

“It’s clearly a really popular, cool site, but you also have the issue of kids being significantly too young for it,” said James P. Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that reviews tech products for families. “It’s not that the content on TikTok isn’t O.K. for your 15-year-old. It’s what happens to your 6- or 7-year-old.”

“這顯然是一個人氣很高、很酷的網(wǎng)站，但使用它的一些孩子年紀(jì)實在太小了，”常識媒體(Common Sense Media)總干事詹姆斯·P·斯泰耶爾(James P. Steyer)說，這是一家對面向家庭的科技產(chǎn)品進行核查的非營利組織。他表示，“關(guān)鍵不在于TikTok上的內(nèi)容對你家15歲的孩子不合適，而是它會對你家6、7歲的孩子造成的影響。”

While using TikTok, I never saw examples of bullying or harassment. (Both of which are prohibited by TikTok’s community guidelines, as is sexually explicit content.) There are, however, a decent number of videos featuring teenage girls dancing suggestively — which, if you are a 31-year-old newspaper columnist and not a 16-year-old boy, is fairly unsettling.

在使用TikTok時，我從未見到過霸凌或騷擾的案例。(這兩類都在TikTok社區(qū)指南的禁止之列，性露骨內(nèi)容同樣被禁。)然而，也有相當(dāng)數(shù)量的視頻主角是表演挑逗性舞蹈的少女，對此，如果你是31歲的報紙專欄作家而非16歲的男孩，這的確是讓人相當(dāng)擔(dān)心的。

A TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement that promoting safety and positivity on the platform is “our top priority.” She added, “we periodically add to and adjust our protective measures, policies and moderation efforts to support the well-being of our users.”

一位TikTok發(fā)言人在一份聲明中說，在平臺上推廣安全性和正面性是“我們的頭等大事。”她還說：“我們會定期增補和調(diào)整我們的保護性措施、政策和審核工作，以為用戶的福祉提供支持。”

Last year, after two other apps owned by ByteDance were criticized by Chinese officials for promoting objectionable content, the company’s chief executive, Zhang Yiming, said that it would increase the ranks of its content moderation team to 10,000 moderators, from 6,000. The TikTok spokeswoman declined to say how many of those moderators work for TikTok, or whether content standards for American users differ from those for users in China, where famously strict censorship laws apply.

去年，在字節(jié)跳動的兩款其他應(yīng)用因推廣不當(dāng)內(nèi)容受到中國官員批評之后，公司總裁張一鳴說，將把內(nèi)容審核團隊從6千擴增至1萬人。前述TikTok發(fā)言人拒絕透露這些審核人員中有多少為TikTok工作，或針對美國用戶的內(nèi)容標(biāo)準(zhǔn)和中國用戶是否存在不同，眾所周知，后者要接受嚴(yán)格的審查法律管轄。

Free-speech advocates might bristle at TikTok’s Chinese ownership, and privacy hawks have raised questions about how the company handles users’ personal data. But perhaps because it is more heavily moderated than other networks, TikTok mostly feels safe and wholesome. Julia Alexander, a fellow TikTok convert at The Verge, called it “a rare social app that isn’t infested with hateful rhetoric.”

言論自由倡導(dǎo)者可能會對TikTok的中國屬性感到憤怒，隱私鷹派人士也已就公司如何處理用戶個人數(shù)據(jù)提出了質(zhì)疑。但或許因為它比其他網(wǎng)絡(luò)審核更為嚴(yán)格，TikTok大多是時候仍感覺是安全健康的。TikTok從科技媒體The Verge挖角的朱莉婭·亞歷山大(Julia Alexander)稱其為“一款未被仇恨言論侵?jǐn)_的罕見社交應(yīng)用。”

One popular genre of TikTok video is the “challenge,” a kind of video skit that is acted out en masse. One challenge, #eatonthebeat, encouraged users to make videos of themselves chomping down on food to the beat of a song.Another challenge, #chooseyourcharacter, encouraged users to mimic a video game’s character selection screen.Then there are the running jokes attached to specific songs — like “Good Girls Bad Guys,” a song by the band Falling in Reverse, which is used for a genre of video in which a user appears first in nerdy, unattractive clothes, and then cuts abruptly to a made-over version of himself in sunglasses, leather jackets or other bad-boy attire.

TikTok的一類熱門視頻是“挑戰(zhàn)”，某種大家一起來玩的視頻小品。一項挑戰(zhàn)名為“跟著節(jié)奏吃”(#eatonthebeat)，讓用戶錄制自己跟著樂曲節(jié)拍大嚼食物的視頻。另一項挑戰(zhàn)為“選擇你的角色”(#chooseyourcharacter)，要求用戶模仿電子游戲中的角色選擇界面。此外，還有和一些具體歌曲相關(guān)的嬉鬧，如Falling in Reverse樂隊的《好女孩，壞男孩》(Good Girls Bad Guys)被用于一種類型的視頻，玩家先是穿著土氣、難看的衣服亮相，然后突然變出一個他本人的全新靚麗形象，穿戴墨鏡、皮夾克或其他壞男孩服飾。

Despite TikTok’s teens-only vibe, some adults have started to trickle on. Jimmy Fallon, the late-night TV host, recently joined the site and started posting his own challenges. The comedian Amy Schumer recently made a TikTok video, and prominent YouTubers like Jake Paul have tested the waters.

盡管TikTok有著少年專屬的氣質(zhì)，一些成年人也慢慢在參與進來。深夜電視主持人吉米·法倫(Jimmy Fallon)近日加入該網(wǎng)站，開始發(fā)布他自己的挑戰(zhàn)視頻。喜劇演員艾米·舒默(Amy Schumer)最近制作了一個TikTok視頻，而杰克·保羅(Jake Paul)這樣的YouTube名人也已試水。

Is TikTok a Facebook killer? No, probably not. For all the variety in its videos, it is still a fairly limited app, with a more narrow appeal than more populist social platforms.

TikTok是Facebook殺手嗎?答案很可能是否定的。盡管擁有五花八門的視頻，它仍是個相當(dāng)有限的應(yīng)用，相比全民性的社交平臺，它的號召力仍屬小眾。

But by purposely limiting its features, by resisting the temptation to monetize its users aggressively and by keeping trolls and bullies off its platform, TikTok has done something truly impressive — it has built a social network that is genuinely fun to use.

但通過有意識地限制產(chǎn)品特性，忍住不去利用它的用戶大肆賺錢，以及將噴子和霸凌者摒除在平臺之外，TikTok確實做出了一些真正精彩的東西——它建立了一個使用起來確實有趣的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

There might be a lesson there.

從中我們也許能學(xué)到點什么。