#last capcut edit ever before it’s banned :(

[wormdevourer]

mydei edit I made (also up on my YouTube!)

[nickgerlich]

When Life Hands You Lemons

The semester is starting to wind down these days, especially for my grad students, whose term lasts only 13 weeks. It may seem like it is long at times, but it really is fast. And like many other semesters before, we have been treated to some very newsworthy, sometimes amusing, other times anger-inspiring, events that cause us to stand up and pay attention.



Like the ongoing worries over TikTok and whether it should be banished not just in individual states and on their government-owned devices, but nationwide. Australia just announced its complete ban on government-owned devices. In the US, in a rather odd come-together moment for the Right and Left, there is momentum to ban it here as well.



It’s just that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has more ammo in its case. The top apps right now for lifestyle and video editing are owned by them: Lemon8 and CapCut. Take that, you pompous lawmakers. We’re not just going to roll over and die.



CapCut is a handy tool for creating the reels that users post to TikTok or elsewhere. I only learned about it this last weekend from my oldest daughter, who said that “everyone’s using it” at the digital marketing agency she calls her professional home. Me, I use Mojo, which, for all I know, could be owned by ByteDance as well. She says it is much better than Mojo. I messaged Oldest Daughter yesterday about CapCut’s owner, and I could almost hear her gulp all the way from Dallas.



And then there’s Lemon8, the new social media app that is designed to take on both Instagram and Pinterest. But in the case of Lemon8, it’s only new to the US. Launched in 2020 to little fanfare, ByteDance kept it in limited circulation until now.

And now we know why.

Lemon8 is not an exact Instagram clone, however, focusing—at least for now—on fashion, food, wellness, and travel, among other general interest topics. Like BeReal, it shuns pretense, and urges users not to stage photos like many we see on Insta. The site also encourages users to include direct links to where viewers can buy featured products.

My question now is whether a ban on TikTok would also include a ban on Lemon8 and CapCut. And even if it does, what’s to stop ByteDance from continuing to roll out new apps to dodge federal bullets? Will it boil down to banishing all Chinese-owned apps, like Pinduoduo and Shein? This could lead to war, you know.

Which makes me begin to wonder if all this pomp and circumstance, this drum-beating, is an exercise in futility. Short of erecting a massive firewall around us, like the Chinese do to keep out western media, there’s little that can be done. Worse yet, it leads to frustrations among the people, especially when we live in a place that espouses First Amendment rights and freedoms. Fire up the VPN, as I have said before, and hope you don’t get caught. I hear that Chinese citizens can be in serious trouble if they do so. The last thing we need is a similar clamp down.

The other part of me wonders how people can continue to absorb so many social media sites. I am not opposed to the development of new ones at all. It’s just that there are still only 24 hours in the day, and I have a hard enough time just attending to Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. I have work to do, you know. Heck, my LinkedIn looks like a ghost page. I guess if I were looking for a job, I’d hop on it.

All of which means we are continuing to slice the market into ever smaller pieces, and as long as it can be done profitably, new sites will continue to roll out. Stir on the controversy of Chinese ownership, and Ima gonna have things to write about for a long, long time.

Let the user beware. There may be someone in Beijing looking over your shoulder.

Dr “But Still I Must Check It Out“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[nickgerlich]

Tick Tock, TikTok

When the social media era began early in the 21st century, no one could have predicted just how important it would become. From the ways we shop—yes, we shop socially—to the ways we communicate, are entertained, and get our news, social media sites are arguably just as important as old school traditional media outlets

And unless you have been living in a cave, it would be nearly impossible to have missed out on the TikTok debate that came to a climax this weekend. Well, for now at least.

Last April, President Biden championed a federal law that gave China-based ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, 270 days to find a non-Chinese buyer for their US operations. Fears of possible data privacy and national security issues prompted this ban. And it almost seems uncanny that the deadline would fall on the day before Inauguration Day, so that whomever won the 2024 election would find themself in the thick of it.

Last Friday the Supreme Court upheld the law. Shark Tank celebrity and investor Kevin O’Leary came forward with a $20 billion offer to buy it, but ByteDance said it wasn’t for sale. As Saturday evening unfolded, ByteDance pulled the plug at 9:30pm CST, before the US government could block it. Along with TikTok, other properties owned by Byte Dance—Lemon8 and CapCut—also went dark. Suddenly, 170 million US users were locked out, including a slew of content creators who depend on TikTok for their income, and small businesses that sell there.

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump (who will fully be President later today) announced he would extend the deadline and work to find a buyer, or even a 50/50 partnership between a US company and ByteDance. It was an odd turnaround given that in 2020 he too supported a ban on TikTok. Politics is a funny thing.

But then around noon CST yesterday, TikTok and its sibling sites came back, with an announcement thanking President Trump, who technically was not even President yet. If you heard a sucking sound, you might just be right. Cozying up can have benefits.

So here we are on Inauguration Day, and social media has found itself with equal headlines alongside a peace treaty and return of hostages in the Middle East, as well as pardons coming this afternoon. Who would have thought, right? Back on Inauguration Day in 2001, no one even knew what social media is.

While the Supreme Court ruled that national security trumped—pardon the pun—our First Amendment rights, it is hard to ignore the gorillas in the living room. Instagram also has 170 million US users, and only Facebook—with 200 million US users—exceeds them. These sites are important to us on many levels. Right or wrong, these are the places we spend time and hang out. Social critics can argue all they want about how these sites have physically separated us from one another. The truth is they have brought us together in ways we once could not imagine.

TikTok, which launched in 2016 but did not find its stride here until 2020, has redefined the social graph, and forced Meta—parent of Facebook, Insta, Threads, and WhatsApp—to up its game. In fact, in just the last few days Insta made some major changes, including going with 4 x 5 tiles instead of its traditional squares. They also announced a new video editing app called Edits, which will be available next month.

The rise of TikTok Shop is nothing to sneeze at, with $7 million in sales each day in the US. Instagram shopping was $37 billion last year, while Facebook Marketplace accounted for $26 billion. And you thought Amazon was the bad guy in diverting sales away from brick and mortar establishments. Turns out they—with annual US sales of $159 billion—are just one of the players in this drama.

And then there are the creators who earn their living doing TikTok Lives. I recently had the opportunity to interview a TikTok millionaire while in Florida. He’s 23 years old and has more money than I will ever have. Well, unless I start my own TikTok Live channel, although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the same appeal he does. Who wants to watch an old Marketing prof drone on and on? I recorded a podcast episode with him, which drops tomorrow at BuffSpeak.biz. Highly recommend.

We must remember that the TikTok drama is not over. Basically, Trump and TikTok have kicked the can down the road, kind of like ignoring those worn tires on your truck and delaying buying new ones. There still is no solution in sight. Regardless, President Trump has his first political victory—albeit a tenuous one—before even taking his oath.

And 170 million Americans can continue to use TikTok. Life as we knew it goes on.

Dr “The Reel Thing” Gerlich

Audio Blog