That means videos on the platform become popular purely based on their entertainment and engagement value, not on the size of the account that posted the video.
Part of the key to the platform's success is how it recommends videos. In a recent article on TikTok's algorithm, the researcher Arvind Narayanan explained that on TikTok, every video had an equal chance of success, whether it was made by an account with 12 followers or an account with 120,000 followers. That means videos on the platform become popular purely based on their entertainment and engagement value, not on the size of the account that posted the video. Because of this, the likelihood of a random person going viral is greater on TikTok than on other platforms. But once a creator hits the viral-video jackpot, it's challenging to make their popularity stick. That's because on TikTok, every video a creator makes has to outperform every other TikTok video.