TikTok is an ever-changing platform with trends that are impossible to keep up with. It’s hard to tell who started what because trends spread so rapidly. However, in a new interview with Kick Game, Jason Derulo is trying to take credit for not just a TikTok trend, but the entire transformation of the app.
Derulo discusses how it started off as a dancing app, and it wasn’t until he “started to introduce other things” that it changed. He explained that he noticed young people were using the app, and he wanted to check it out, but he didn’t start until the pandemic when he had time on his hands. He currently boasts 56.8 million TikTok followers.
“I had fun with it, honestly. It was a dance app at first. It being a dance app, I felt like, I don’t know if this is gonna work. Everybody doesn’t like to dance,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Let me start posting other sh*t.’ I tried to post a photo, that didn’t work. People was like, ‘What the f*ck is this?’ Then I started to post random story-like videos. That didn’t work.”
He continued, “What worked was when I was posting things that was more fun. Things that showed another side of me, you know what I’m saying? I was like, ‘Okay, this is a moment where I can be a leader and do something that’s totally different on the app.’ I think it changed the app forever because TikTok used to be just a dance app, and it wasn’t until I started to introduce other things that it became the app that it is today. And to this day, TikTok pays me…” He was about to share a dollar amount, but instead said, “Let me not say that.”
When pressed for specific tips for going viral on TikTok, Derulo emphasized that “lighting is everything” and “be organic to yourself.”
Watch the interview above. The TikTok talk begins around the 14-minute mark.