brookeblough

[brookeblough]

test

test

this is a test

[brookeblough]

Dead by TikTok

THE COMMUNITY

The community I have chosen to analyze is that of people who play the game Dead by Daylight (DBD), and specifically those who take to the app TikTok to converse with the community.

In the words of the official Dead by Daylight website, “Dead by Daylight is an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game where one player takes on the role of a brutal Killer and the other four play as Survivors,” (Game).

Because of the fact that there are two sides of the game that can be played, there are a lot of differing opinions in the community. Killer players think that survivor players should play a certain way, survivor players think that killer players should play a certain way, and those who play both mostly just wish everyone would shut up. Often, either side of the argument doesn’t even agree with their own side.

One thing that the community usually comes together on is to criticize the developers of the game. DBD is made by a fairly small independent development team, and they are still often making changes and adding updates to the game. Of course, there will likely never be a time where every person who plays the game is pleased, so this is often a topic of discussion (or more likely disagreement).

Every few months, the developers also add a new killer and/or survivor to play as, and with these come more perks as well (more about this later). This brings even more ground for discussion and disagreement as players argue over whether the killer is too strong or too weak.

I chose to play on one of the common assumptions held by players of the game in choosing one of my posts and how I captioned it. This requires a bit of background to really understand it.

In the game, there are multiple different survivors that can be chosen to play as. Each of these come with 3 of their own unique “perks” which give the survivor an ability during the match. However, as one continues to play the game, these perks become unlocked through leveling characters and then can be applied to other survivors as well. So, basically, once you have played the game for a couple of months, all survivors end up with all of the same perks and so they all can be played exactly the same.

This being said, one assumption that the community still holds is that a certain “type” of player tends to play a specific survivor. I usually play as the character Meg. “Meg players” are usually known for running around, making dumb decisions, and getting their team killed. While I would argue that this is not always the case, I found a gameplay clip of my own where I did fall into this “Meg player” stereotype.

So I decided, “why not?” and decided to play into this and post the clip to TikTok.

@_bekoorb

when you get way too confident for no reason 😅 who’s your least favorite killer? ##dbd ##dbdclips ##dbdvideos ##deadbydaylight ##streamclips ##streamer

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod

The video shows me being saved by another player, and then running us both straight to the killer. I ended up getting away, but the other player did not.

I chose to use the caption “Your real mistake was following a Meg,” to further speak to this assumption. I thought this was a clever way to start a conversation with the community, even if it just gave them an excuse to make fun of the way I played. I believe that if the video had gotten more views, it would have been enjoyed by the community.

MY CONTRIBUTION

Over the course of posting in this community, my posts received on average about 7 views, with only 2 or 3 likes on each. None of my posts received any comments. Additionally, the comments that I left on other posts did not receive any interaction. I guess, if there was a pattern, it was that no one really saw my posts.

Having spent a lot of time on TikTok in my free time, I used my knowledge of the app to attempt to break into the algorithm. First of all, I used trending music on the app as background noise for my videos because posts with these audio sounds are more likely to be promoted.

When I say “promoted”, I mean showing up on other users For You Page. This is basically the front page of the app, and where a large majority of users spend all of their time scrolling. This is really the only way to find new content on TikTok.

Other than using trending background music, I also designed the captions of my posts to the community. I used hashtags such as #dbd, #dbdclips, and #deadbydaylight in order to cover a range of different hashtags while still covering the same topic. I also tried out adding a question into the caption so that if anyone did stumble upon my post, they would have something to respond to.

I also attempted to use up to date trends in the content of my videos posted. For my first one, I used a trend of not actually speaking but using pop up text-to-speech on the screen. This is the one that I mentioned earlier, but here it is again:

  @_bekoorb

your real mistake was following a meg ##dbd ##dbdclips ##dbdvideos ##streamer ##streamclips

♬ Elevator Music - Bohoman

 This was something that I was seeing a lot in trending videos, so I decided to try it out and see if it would be promoted, but it unfortunately did not work out how I wanted it to.

Something that I learned about this community in this process was how difficult it can be to break into it. You really have to be consistent in posting and interacting, and it is mostly left up to luck whether people end up seeing it or not.

I also learned that despite the fact that the DBD community is very opinionated, through my time analyzing this specific community I actually found that on TikTok the focus was usually not that of opinion. Most of the posts that I saw and interacted with have been funny, entertaining, or informative. Sometimes there will be posts giving tips or strategies on the gameplay, but a lot of the time the clips on TikTok are highlight videos.

Because of this, for one of my posts I decided to try to fit into the “highlight videos” category. I found a funny moment from a time that I was playing the game, and again added some trending background music to it. I also edited text on the screen so that it would pop up as I was speaking it, which I thought added a level of comedy.

@_bekoorb

when you get way too confident for no reason 😅 who’s your least favorite killer? ##dbd ##dbdclips ##dbdvideos ##deadbydaylight ##streamclips ##streamer

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod

In this post, I also added a question to my caption so that if my post was viewed, my audience would have something to respond to. THE PLATFORM

Something interesting that I found was that TikTok users almost always use hashtags in their posts. However, I’m not sure this really accomplishes much. It’s possible that it makes the post more likely to show up on someone’s feed who often watches or likes videos with that hashtag, but something I found is that it is very difficult to find new videos using the hashtags.

In the same way that I found it difficult to find posts to comment on in order to interact with this community, others were unable to find my posts in the hashtags.

If you do search a hashtag with the intention to find new content or new users, you won’t find much. This is because the posts under a certain hashtag are listed in order according to how popular they are, and there is no way to change the order. This basically means that if you are looking for new videos, you won’t find them there. The only place to find new content is on your ‘For You Page’, and that is pretty randomized and mostly shows popular videos as well.

This means that in order to gain views and followers, most of the time you have to already have views and followers.

It’s like when an entry level job requires a year of past experience. If I can’t get hired because I don’t have experience, how am I supposed to gain the experience?

This further solidifies the fact that the TikTok algorithm favors only content that is already popular. The people with the most followers and views continue to have their videos promoted, and they basically control the format of the app from there.

 I don’t think this is all bad. Sure, the platform very much favors already popular content so it is difficult for newcomers to gain any sort of traction on the app. But on the other hand, I believe this puts less stress on trying to become “popular” and more emphasis on making posts for fun and as a creative outlet. Of course, I’d argue that there is a little part in all of us that would like our posts to become popular, but that doesn’t always have to be the point.  

This also has an effect on how communication happens (or doesn’t) on the app. When the posts being shown on peoples feed is often from the same handful of creators, there is not much opportunity to see a variety of opinions or discussion.

Works Cited

“Game.” Dead by Daylight, deadbydaylight.com/en/game.