Movie of the Week
TikTok, BOOM
Exploring all angles of the TikTok phenomenon, TikTok, Boom, now streaming on Showmax, offers insights into the realities that drive the app.
Short-form video social media service TikTok has taken the world by storm, inviting users worldwide to capture any content, including pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, and dances, in anything from 10 seconds to 10 minutes.
In 2022, the app celebrated over three billion downloads, with many users spending large pockets of their time creating TikTok content, or consuming it.
As used and loved as the app may be, what about the artists who spend their time producing the content?
Could there be red flags in this relationship of co-partnership?
TikTok, Boom navigates the infinite intersections that tell the perspective of TikTok co-producers. The documentary investigates the algorithmic, socio-political, economic, and cultural landscape that forms the overall experience of this highly-consumed app.
The documentary seeks to explore with candidness, the communities that make up users of the app, by examining the psychology between the app’s content producers versus the mindset of the app’s developers, who control the algorithm.
It delves into topics like security issues, the global political challenges, and racial biases behind the platform, with commentary from influencers like Spencer X, Feroza Aziz, and Deja Fox.
Directed by Sundance Institute Documentary Film fellow Shalini Kantayya (Coded Bias), the feature documentary premiered at Sundance in 2022 and is streaming on Showmax.
