The Brief: TikTokers are creating layered reaction and duet chains to add more humor to their videos.
DEEP DIVE
Group reactions and duets are becoming more prominent on the short-form video app TikTok. Users have long been able to critique or sing-along with another person using the side-by-side feature, but with the recent update allowing a horizontal (up-and-down) duet option, more and more TikTokers are duetting one another and creating chains that look more like group reactions. This effect tends to add more humor to a video, as each additional reaction builds upon the others.
This can be seen in this video featuring Black creators reacting to a nonsensical statement simultaneously.
@thereal_tati #duet with @iam.mellj haha keep it going
There’s also this take featuring a creator discussing George Floyd’s death and race relations in America.
@kaychelled
TikTokers have also made use of the “Green Screen” effect to yield a similar type of result. In the “Walk Down This Hallway ” TikTok trend, creators downloaded a video and used it as a backdrop while the pretended to walk down he hallway, basically joining the other creators in the video.
@weeb_master1 #greenscreenvideo BUH BAI #dontfypmytiktok #notthefypage #nofypplz #stop #dontshare #dontlike #dinochickennugget
With the U.S. five months into the new norm of social distancing and quarantining, many people joined TikTok as a means of online amusement. The group reaction trend is another way for creators to feel as if they are interacting with one another without having to be in the same room.