The well-known app, TikTok, launched in September 2016 and has made headlines ever since. With roughly one billion users on the app, TikTok is one of the biggest and most influential apps to ever touch our phones.

A key part of TikTok is its sounds — a fifteen-second clip of a song or other audio that accompanies the videos. Due to this and TikTok’s algorithms, it is very easy for an artist’s song to blow up with the help of a catchy lyric. There have been many artists that have succeeded because of this.

An artist that comes to mind is a popular singer by the name of Steve Lacy. He has made some of the most trending sounds on the app with songs such as “Bad Habit,” “Dark Red,” and “Sunshine.”

With his overnight success through the platform, Lacy has gained a large following with over 1.6 million followers. His music has been featured in numerous TikTok videos, leading to increased exposure and success. Furthermore, TikTok has helped to propel Lacy’s career and establish him as a popular artist.

Steve Lacy is a clear example of how artists use the platform to expand to others such as Spotify and YouTube to help their brand. The short-form content that is TikTok helps new and upcoming artists display their talents to people all over the world in just a few seconds.

However, these short 15 seconds have drastically affected him and his music, and maybe not the way he had hoped. Lacy is now on tour and has been seen performing these trending songs all over social media with his fans not knowing the full lyrics to his music. He would stand there with the mic in the air with the hope that they would sing along, but they didn’t do so. 

Instead, they would stand there in confusion about what the next lyric was for them to sing. 

This is majorly due to TikTok. The app has been designed for us consumers to swipe through different videos every 10 seconds, so even those viral videos that surface on the app are not recognized the next day because of the fluctuating amount of new content.

Lacy’s fans have a bad habit of throwing things up on the stage of his performances such as phones and cameras to get the attention of the artist. Because of this, it has caused him to be outraged and let out his anger by damaging these items of his own fans.

TikTok may have ruined real-life experiences, such as concerts, for him and many other upcoming artists in the future. If you held a concert and saw your fans standing there in confusion not knowing your lyrics and throwing objects at you, would you be upset? 

Lacy certainly was, but his actions aren’t how any artist or influencer of any sort should carry themselves on social media, for they may break his reputation as an artist. With the power of social media, he could be holding himself back from his full potential.

Lacy himself needs to see that he can’t be showing this type of behavior in front of the public because it’s very unprofessional for the artist to take his emotions out on his fans — those simply trying to be acknowledged by him. 

With these videos that surface all over the world, TikTok has the power to throw away everything that these artists have built. One clip from a fan page can change their whole world, making it their responsibility to not portray themselves as a villain to the public.

TikTok may have ruined music in the long run. Fans only capturing 15 seconds of a song can lead to an artist being upset about their performance, changing the trajectory of their career and their music.