In 2015, the app Musical.ly attracted millions of users and managed to climb up to the top position on the charts in the iOS App Store. In late 2017, the app was bought by Bytedance Technology Co., which turned Musical.ly into an American version of the Chinese app TikTok.
The app utilizes popular songs and sound to create short videos that users can share on Instagram and Snapchat. The app spawned several Musical.ly celebrities in the last couple of months, with many young people gaining thousands of followers off the app. Many believe that has now come to an end as Musical.ly has been bought and renamed Tik Tok.

In China, the app is known as Douyin and has over 300 million monthly active users. Tik Tok is based around users uploading short 15 second videos of themselves showcasing their dance moves or acting skills. Alex Zhu, co-founder of Musical.ly and now senior vice president of Tik Tok, says he is excited to enter a new chapter with the Chinese company.

The social platform is now one of the most downloadable apps to hit the App Store since Snapchat, and has more than 250 millions users who share almost 15 million new “music videos” every day. The app continues to succeed, particularly due its young audience fan base.
“When we were [younger], we used to do the same thing and I think that the [7th and 8th graders] are just following in our footsteps,” Lundyn Lane, ‘20, said.
When the current upperclassmen were in their “pre-teens,” many used apps such as Vine, Dubsmash and Triller, so the mania around the app is understandable. Although the amusing, lively app has now vanished, users can continue to create more content to entertain their peers.