抖音海外版TikTok为何能取得成功？
下载流行视频分享应用程序TikTok(海外版抖音)的一个小时后，我经历了一种奇怪的感觉，这是我在互联网上长久没有感受到的。胸口的结放松了，脑袋里仿佛充满了氦气，嘴角向上蠕动，开始微笑。
Was this … happiness? 这是......幸福吗?
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——一个集合了Snapchat、现已不存在的视频应用Vine和“搭车卡拉OK”电视节目的奇特混合体——在社交媒体领域是一个令人耳目一新的异类。没有广告。没有新闻，除非你认为了解那些风靡一时的舞蹈热潮也算新闻。这里没什么精心打扮的Instagram模特摆卖减肥茶，明显看不到神经兮兮的大叔发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——这款中国制造的应用原本名叫Musical.ly，后来被中国互联网巨头字节跳动于2017年收购，并与其拥有的一款视频应用融合——的设定很简单。用户创作配了音乐的短视频，往往是对口型的假唱、跳舞或表演小品。应用中有模板和视觉效果，以增加视频的趣味性。它还有一个直播功能，允许用户向他们喜欢的创作者发送虚拟“礼物”，可以用真钱购买。剩下的就和其他任何一种社交应用没什么区别了——关注者、话题标签、点赞和评论。
It doesn’t sound like much. But, somehow, it adds up to what might well be the only truly pleasant social network in existence.
这听起来并不是什么不得了的事。但不知何故，它到最后成了一个可能是现存唯一真正令人愉悦的社交网络。
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.
我之所以敢于做出这样的论断，是因为我以社交网络为生，我花费几千个小时跋涉在Twitter水军、Instagram骗子、少年YouTube法西斯主义者和婴儿潮一代的污秽池沼之中，他们的大脑已经被太多的Facebook米姆变成了布丁。
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完全没有这些。相反，它是最稀有的互联网生物：一个人们可以放下他们的防卫，与朋友一起做出愚蠢行为，品尝人类创造力的果实的地方，在这里无需被叫嚣的喷子或算法放大的不实信息连番轰炸。这是对互联网影响力商业化之前一段时间的回溯，那时的网络文化主要由想逗人大笑的无害怪人组成。
“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.
“这有点像逃避，”TikTok创作者比利·曼(Billy Mann)说道，他利用这个平台为超过65万的粉丝制作搞笑视频。“对于那些看到世界水深火热的人来说，这是一个安全的避风港，就好像说，‘我需要愚蠢，’”他说。
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的诚恳傻气已经让一些怀疑论者失去兴趣。但数据是很难否认的。根据市场研究公司Sensor Tower的一份报告，该应用的美国用户最近超过了600万。截至周五，它在Apple应用程序商店中排名第四，领先于Snapchat、Netflix和Facebook Messenger。在全球范围内，截至7月份，该应用的中文版抖音拥有5亿每月活跃用户，使其规模超过了Twitter，约为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通过虚拟礼品销售和品牌合作赚钱，例如Guess赞助的“时尚接管”。应用内没有广告，不过公司的隐私政策为未来打广告留出了余地。TikTok是一家私营企业，不会公开财务信息，但Sensor Tower估计10月份它的收入约为350万美元。
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响力人物，这些用户拥有数百万粉丝，在青少年中有着家喻户晓的地位。它推动字节跳动的发展——这个公司还拥有其他的一系列社交媒体和新闻应用程序，据报道估值为750亿美元——使其成为世界上最有价值的初创企业之一。
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的全球市场主管斯特凡·海因里希(Stefan Heinrich)在一份声明中表示，该公司的使命是“直接从手机上捕捉和呈现世界的创意、知识和瞬间”。
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.)
也许最能说明TikTok大有前途的是，Facebook在试图杀死它。上月，该公司悄然发布了Lasso，一个蹩脚的抄袭版本，借用了TikTok许多核心功能，甚至试图吸走一些有影响力的用户。根据移动数据公司AppAnnie的说法，Lasso起步缓慢，其下载量目前在美国照片和视频类应用中排名第687。应用发布后不久，领导Lasso团队的高管布雷迪·沃斯(Brady Voss)便离开了公司。(Facebook拒绝发表评论，沃斯未回应置评请求。)
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.
在进一步阐述前，咱们先明确一点：如果你正在读这篇文章，那么你的年龄几乎肯定已经老到看不出TikTok有什么好。公司拒绝提供有关其用户的信息，但从平台上发布的内容来看，TikTok用户年龄中值似乎是十四五岁的样子。TikTok上满是布满青春痘的面孔，几乎不加掩饰的青少年焦虑，以及让人一头雾水的青年文化暗语。在我看来，成年人去使用它，免不了要觉得自己是陪孩子去参加高中舞会的监护人。
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.
正式层面上，TikTok用户必须年满13岁或以上才能加入。但年龄验证程序很容易避过，而在浏览该平台时，我偶然能看到不少视频的主角年纪根本到不了13岁。在其前身Musical.ly中，TikTok曾招致一些隐私倡导者的攻击，后者指责其正在挑战《儿童网络隐私保护法》(Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act)的极限，该法律禁止采集13岁以下用户的某些类型的信息。
“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.”
“这显然是一个人气很高、很酷的网站，但使用它的一些孩子年纪实在太小了，”常识媒体(Common Sense Media)总干事詹姆斯·P·斯泰耶尔(James P. Steyer)说，这是一家对面向家庭的科技产品进行核查的非营利组织。他表示，“关键不在于TikTok上的内容对你家15岁的孩子不合适，而是它会对你家6、7岁的孩子造成的影响。”
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时，我从未见到过霸凌或骚扰的案例。(这两类都在TikTok社区指南的禁止之列，性露骨内容同样被禁。)然而，也有相当数量的视频主角是表演挑逗性舞蹈的少女，对此，如果你是31岁的报纸专栏作家而非16岁的男孩，这的确是让人相当担心的。
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发言人在一份声明中说，在平台上推广安全性和正面性是“我们的头等大事。”她还说：“我们会定期增补和调整我们的保护性措施、政策和审核工作，以为用户的福祉提供支持。”
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，在字节跳动的两款其他应用因推广不当内容受到中国官员批评之后，公司总裁张一鸣说，将把内容审核团队从6千扩增至1万人。前述TikTok发言人拒绝透露这些审核人员中有多少为TikTok工作，或针对美国用户的内容标准和中国用户是否存在不同，众所周知，后者要接受严格的审查法律管辖。
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.”
言论自由倡导者可能会对TikTok的中国属性感到愤怒，隐私鹰派人士也已就公司如何处理用户个人数据提出了质疑。但或许因为它比其他网络审核更为严格，TikTok大多是时候仍感觉是安全健康的。TikTok从科技媒体The Verge挖角的朱莉娅·亚历山大(Julia Alexander)称其为“一款未被仇恨言论侵扰的罕见社交应用。”
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的一类热门视频是“挑战”，某种大家一起来玩的视频小品。一项挑战名为“跟着节奏吃”(#eatonthebeat)，让用户录制自己跟着乐曲节拍大嚼食物的视频。另一项挑战为“选择你的角色”(#chooseyourcharacter)，要求用户模仿电子游戏中的角色选择界面。此外，还有和一些具体歌曲相关的嬉闹，如Falling in Reverse乐队的《好女孩，坏男孩》(Good Girls Bad Guys)被用于一种类型的视频，玩家先是穿着土气、难看的衣服亮相，然后突然变出一个他本人的全新靓丽形象，穿戴墨镜、皮夹克或其他坏男孩服饰。
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.
尽管TikTok有着少年专属的气质，一些成年人也慢慢在参与进来。深夜电视主持人吉米·法伦(Jimmy Fallon)近日加入该网站，开始发布他自己的挑战视频。喜剧演员艾米·舒默(Amy Schumer)最近制作了一个TikTok视频，而杰克·保罗(Jake Paul)这样的YouTube名人也已试水。
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杀手吗?答案很可能是否定的。尽管拥有五花八门的视频，它仍是个相当有限的应用，相比全民性的社交平台，它的号召力仍属小众。
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.
但通过有意识地限制产品特性，忍住不去利用它的用户大肆赚钱，以及将喷子和霸凌者摒除在平台之外，TikTok确实做出了一些真正精彩的东西——它建立了一个使用起来确实有趣的社交网络。
There might be a lesson there.
从中我们也许能学到点什么。
