i'm a little old for tiktok but i can tell you that they didn't use it the way you think they did. they didn't just consume or create content. i asked the younger people about tiktok and they told me they use it to find interesting things in their area or to an area they're going to. aka if they want something nice to eat in a certain area they use tiktok to find a great restaurant since it seems like it's better at that compared to any other platform. or if they are traveling to another country they use tiktok to find cool places to visit or cool things to do. they say it's much better than google when it comes to this. it's nothing like vine or instagram reels or youtube shorts. it offers a lot more. and apparently it's algorithm is superior. i think the algorithm even personalizes the comments that are at the top for you (this last bit might be something different and not tiktok i'm not sure i don't really remember)..
United Arab Emirates