How TikTok Conquered the World
By Kelli Luu | 01 Oct, 2025

In less than a decade, TikTok became the most powerful social media platform in the world, creating a global stage where trends go viral daily.

When TikTok launched, so did a cultural revolution. The hours spent scrolling and viral dances once were not a part of our everyday lives but in just a few years TikTok has become one of the most downloaded apps in the world

In September 2016 Chinese tech company ByteDance released A.me, a social media platform which allowed users to upload short-video content. Later in December the name was changed to what is now known today as Douyin and in just one year it had 100 million users and over one billion videos being viewed every day. Since Douyin proved to be a success in China, ByteDance developed an international version of it, TikTok. 

But over in the States, a different Chinese-owned short-video platform was making waves, Musical.ly. This app gave users different editing features such as time-lapse, slow motion, and pre-set filters and gave the option to browse through trending songs and sounds. From their Santa Monica office, Musical.ly launched in both the Chinese and American App Stores earlier in August 2014 and had over 200 million active users by May 2017. 

In 2018 ByteDance made a huge move and purchased Musical.ly for nearly $1 billion in order to merge it with TikTok. This merge is what pushed TikTok to become a worldwide phenomenon as it was able to consolidate data from existing accounts into one app while keeping the name, TikTok. 

What made TikTok so addicting was its algorithm. At the time, on social media we would only see content from people we followed, but TikTok’s For You Page showed users videos that were tailored to their interests regardless of who they followed. This made doom scrolling inevitable and gave anyone the opportunity to go viral overnight, which created a whole new category of internet celebrities or influencers. 

By 2019 TikTok was the most downloaded app in the United States and the COVID pandemic in 2020 made it the world’s most downloaded app since everyone had nothing but time on their hands. It became a place where you could learn how to do anything like test new recipes, or even get advice from professionals. 

Today TikTok has accumulated more than 5 billion downloads since its release. Over the years it has continued to add new factors such as live streaming, e-commerce, and even the ability to upload videos up to 10 minutes long. TikTok has expanded from silly entertainment into education, businesses, and full-on content creation. One single app has reshaped the way people use social media and it is now a birthplace for viral trends. In less than one decade, TikTok redefined pop culture and the future of social media as one of the most powerful platforms on the planet.