The latest craze among teenagers today is the new app, TikTok.

It’s an app that allows you to make videos lip-syncing songs, dancing, and doing just about anything you want. The majority of teens you ask will say they either watch TikToks or make them themselves. The app is public to everyone and you can see anyone’s TikTok videos.

The obsession begins with the new and trendy songs that circulate around the app. Some of these songs are only found on TikTok which makes the app even more popular. The next thing that captivates teenagers is the dances that go along with the songs. The dances are choreographed to songs that were popular years ago or very recently.

One TikTok user Gabby Naucke says, “I like to learn the dances with my friends.”

While these dances and lip-syncing is all fun and games, there is much more to the app than that. Many young teenagers are glorifying dangerous things such as e-cigarettes and drug use. Some TikTok users make videos of them using e-cigarettes and show large amounts of empty Juul pods, hinting at the fact that they have an intense nicotine addiction. Not only is this toxic for the other teenagers who watch the videos, but it is seen by many children as young as elementary schoolers. Normalizing the use of e-cigarettes to people this young only contributes to the growing dangers of vaping.

Along with the underage vaping, some teenagers take the dances too far by wearing revealing clothing and doing inappropriate dances. Many preteens can be seen on the app wearing clothes that expose much more than any teens should be showing. Along with the provocative outfits, some teens post videos doing very inappropriate dances. The obsession with becoming ‘TikTok famous’ leads these teenagers to take the dances and clothing to the extreme to get noticed.

Also, TikTok videos featuring the phrase “OK, Boomer” have become popular as a way to “call out” the older generations’ hypocrisy. In addition, TikTok coined the term “Karen” for a woman, usually a mom, who is considered overprotective and annoying to teenagers.

Although there are a lot of negatives to the app, there are also a lot of positive sides to it. Some users post videos of things like them and their friends doing silly dances and just having fun. Other users post videos of puppies and other sweet and innocent things. This side of TikTok is what the app was attended to be used for, but you can easily get pulled into the less innocent side of the app.

An avid TikTok user Natalie Hemmy says, “I like to watch all the funny videos of the ferrets.” 

Overall, to avoid the risk of encountering the darker side of the app, younger children should steer clear of TikTok all together. The app creators should be able to better monitor the videos that go up on their site, and hopefully, in the future, the app will only be used for its intended purpose of having fun and making people laugh.