Revisiting TikTok Before It Was TikTok, A Long, Long Time Ago

“From 2014 to 2018, the Chinese app Musical.ly was where kids — as in, literal children and very young teenagers — would lip-sync to 15-second clips of Shawn Mendes and Bebe Rexha songs, or maybe an audio track of a funny Vine. The music played as you recorded; you could slow it down and speed it up and make cuts while filming. That was pretty much the extent of its technical features, and if it sounds like TikTok, that’s because it eventually became TikTok, after it was acquired by another Chinese tech company. But if TikTok is where all the cool kids hang out now, Musical.ly was, well, not.” – Vulture

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