The TikTok Tipping Point

The U.S. government thought it could strong-arm TikTok into selling to an American company, and TikTok called their bluff. Both positions seemingly signify the immense value of the platform. Monetary value being the least of it. The true power of social platforms these days lies in their ability to shape the narrative, influence the zeitgeist, set the trends. And yeah, on TikTok most of those trends involve cats, or silly dances, or cats doing silly dances, but the power to impact culture is what's truly at stake.?

Television used to hold that power.?Malcolm Gladwell brings two examples of this in his latest book “Revenge of the Tipping Point”. He posits that “The Holocaust” TV series on NBC in 1978 (watched by 120 million Americans) brought that event, and the term itself, into the collective consciousness and directly led to the establishment of museums throughout the country. Similarly, “Will & Grace” which ran for 8 seasons starting in 1998 (246 episodes, watched by 10-18 million Americans each) catapulted gay marriage from an issue that even advocates thought was decades off, to the standard across all 50 states less then 10 years after the series ended.?

Television has of course fragmented since then, and in a way that would be wholly? unrecognizable to the audience of 1978. The top TV show this month is Chicago Med with 6 million viewers. Long gone are the days of 120 million viewers. But you know what 170 million Americans spend an average of an hour a day watching in 2025? TikTok. Of course they aren’t all watching the same exact thing, but it’s not all dancing cats either. According to Pew Research, 39% of adults under 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok.?

Malcolm Gladwell uses the term "overstory" to describe a meta-narrative that shapes how people think and behave. Theoretically, whoever controls TikTok, and the other massive social platforms (lookin’ at you Musk and Zuck), can impact how stories are created and spread, and that can have a powerful influence on society. Overstories can shape how people think about the world, and that can be used to create change.

But why the term “overstory”? It’s a metaphor referring to the highest layer of tree-canopy coverage, "way up in the air, in many cases outside our awareness". And that’s why it is so powerful. Look at any social feed right now and it’s Americans calling out the hypocrisy of a ban that was about “data protection" when Meta has been proven to do much more damaging things with user data. If people are backed into blindly accepting the big platforms’ Terms and Privacy Policies, they want the choice to give it away to whoever they want, even if it's only in exchange for dancing cat videos. Look no further then the fact that Chinese App “RedNote” hit #1 in the app store this week. The true impact these platforms can have is “way up in the air”, the overstory, outside of most American’s awareness.?

But much like television, and more recently podcasts and streaming services, the fragmentation will also come to social media. Hastened by the threat, and possible reality, of the TikTok ban. Trump, even for all of his Trumpness, realized this and threw his hat in the ring with Truth social. The slow enshittification of Twitter has led to Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, etc. On the photo and video side, YouTube Shorts, Lemon8, Neptune, Flashes, etc. are all vying to become TikTok alternatives.

We stand on the possible precipice of the inevitable social media fragmentation, a tipping point if you will. One that will lead to the rise of more specialized platforms catering to distinct audiences. Dedicated spaces for communities centered around particular interests, hobbies, and ideologies. Open source social spaces (Bluesky, Mastodon and Pixelfed as examples) as Mark Cuban has explicitly been looking to invest in. For smart brands, one-size-fits-all content has already evolved into platform specific strategies, but the future will require an even more nuanced approach.

This will make social strategy more complex, but also more necessary, as much like paid media channels, it will become more about putting the right message in the right place to reach the right audience, instead of just programming content for the same 3-5 social channels for every brand.?

Therefore, audience targeting will become more crucial, requiring a deep understanding of each platform’s user base and culture. Niche platforms will undoubtedly each develop their own unique tone, style and engagement practices. Brands will need to craft messages that resonate authentically within each specific context. But this same fragmentation will offer opportunities for brands to engage more deeply and build stronger connections. Let this tipping point be a clarion call to brands to dive deeper into social strategy and understanding.?

While the potential TikTok ban has accelerated the fragmentation of social media, it is by no means the only driver in a race to impact, and even control, the overstory. Like the CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew, said today, "we are fighting to protect the constitutional right to free speech for the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform every day to connect, create, discover and achieve their dreams”. But if you look way up in the air, above his words and beyond most people’s awareness, the battle to shape the norms and narratives that influence the behavior of Americans is being waged, and brands should pay attention.?

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