🎵 Top Sounds 🎵
Our curated picks of the top sounds on TikTok
This is a hot song right now and a hot sound on TikTok. It’s a versatile background sound for GRWM’s and more.
Keep Dat 🤠
This is the radio edit of the song by iCandy perfect for any upbeat or celebratory video. The original is also trending but there are reasons the original is a little jarring coming from some folks.
Have you ever wasted your own time? Yes? Yeah, same. Here’s a sound for that.
All hail, Philomena Cunk, our generation’s finest documentarian. Pair this sound with a plot twist (i.e. what something seems like versus what it is).
Also… 😶
Sometimes you don’t have all that much to add to the conversation, other times you might be rendered speechless. This is a sound for either instance.
This sound is for that Friday at 3 pm mood. You know nothing is getting done and your energy is up.
This sound is largely being used by pet owners but I see the potential for usage over historical figures, fictional characters, or really anything you feel a need to defend that is probably at least a little guilty of wrongdoing.
🔉 Our Sound Highlight 🔉
Gen Z Kids
Mood: 🗣️
This is a fresh sound, ripe for use. It has this fun retro energy that would go perfectly as the backdrop to a series of clips, but the ‘act your wage’ ‘I don’t dream of labor’ message would work perfectly for impact and workers’ justice content about Gen Z.
🎥 Video Highlight 🎥
The Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea Bear is more than a mood it is an aspirational figure in a time of dysfunction. It is the greatest asset of an otherwise mysterious tea company. And so naturally, when you put your greatest asset front and center on your social media profile, you’re in for a win.
👹 Effects Highlight 👹
Lucky me! This CapCut template is perfect to react to promises that really aren’t what they’re cracked up to be.
If there’s one thing I love it’s a Succession meme. Use this CapCut filter for your workday woes and mid-day anxiety spikes.
🗣️ The Moment 🗣️
Issues that are at the forefront of online discourse— Tarte & Influencer Marketing
We’re going full gossip blog in The Moment section this week because Tarte and a handful of influencers just gave us a masterclass on (in)equity in influencer marketing.
So let me break down the situation first. Tarte is a popular make-up brand. A brand that has had a brush or two with controversy, most notably when they failed to offer foundation in shades for darker complexions. This past week, Tarte held a brand trip to Miami for influencers. Brand trips are a staple in beauty and fashion influencing, the goal is to take some cool footage and generally promote the brand. Tarte invited influencers on this trip to attend the F1 Miami Grand Prix (an event I am still trying to connect to foundation and setting sprays, but I digress).
Now, here’s where the problems started. Influencers were invited to certain days of the F1 events. The most prestigious being the Grand Prix on Sunday. One influencer, Bria Jones (@heybriajones) released a now-deleted video on TikTok expressing her disappointment over being invited to one of the less prestigious events days, after being led to believe she would be at the Grand Prix race. Bria discussed being made to feel as if she is a ‘second tier person’ as a Black creator and called out unfair treatment on brand trips.
Discourse quickly ensued after Bria’s video went live. In response, the Tarte CEO posted a non-apology video that doubled as a GRWM (corporate comms really aren’t what they used to be). It then became apparent that Bria had been ‘replaced’ on the trip by two other Black creators who posted (and deleted) videos bragging about last-minute invites to the F1 weekend. Yes, that’s right a brand under fire for the treatment of a Black creator decided to launder its reputation by enlisting Black creators to talk about how grateful they were to be second choices.
The resulting optics were ugly for all involved— but especially for the two Black creators, @fannita and @specsandblazers, who headed on the trip and offered up a direct criticism of how Bria handled the situation. What could have turned into a shared criticism of the brand and the influencer marketing industry at large, collapsed into hotly debated ‘drama’ between a handful of Black influencers. Attention on Tarte’s influencer marketing practices? Diverted.
As an influencer marketer, I can tell you hierarchies are undoubtedly created by brands, and when it comes to brand deals Black creators earn 35% less than white creators. Discrimination and the performance of inclusion are not just issues they’re industry standards. While half of TikTok calls out @fannita and @specsandblazers for their role in this, I am more interested in what this means for Tarte and the industry at large. In moments like these, creators and influencer marketers have a chance to band together to reform this industry— and it’s high time we did.
☕ The Zeitgeist ☕
Hot topics from across the internet
TikTok Biden AI edits have been giving me life there’s just something about the pairing of the thoughts on international trade mixed in with bops that are so appealing.
There was a cockroach at the Met Gala and I do not mean the ghost of notorious racist and fatphobe Karl Lagerfeld.
The Paloma Diamond saga continues which if you’re not up to speed, is a fictional prestige actress from a TikTok skit about the Oscars, who is now in fictional beef with another fictional actor played by a different influencer on TikTok. I am invested and I love it.
The Target Pride collection is available in stores and people have thoughts.
Everyone wants the IKEA donut lamp and by everyone I mean TikTok and me, specifically.
WGA is on strike for a future where TV and film writers can afford to survive.
King Charles was crowned in Westminster and the general vibe in my British household was this.
Aside: is it a real country if a stone of destiny is a key part of the proceedings confirming your new head of state?
TikTok updated its Terms of Service here’s a breakdown.
🥡 The Takeaway 🥡
TikTok is back in the sound game.
For weeks I have been tracking effects on TikTok and noticed that CapCut trends seemed to have almost displaced sound-based trends (here ignoring that most CapCut templates pair with accompanying sounds).
With a fewer number of sound trends each week, I was beginning to wonder if TikTok was beginning to stray away from its Musical.ly origins. It had been a slow decline. Sounds alone could build up a creator two years ago. Now, social strategy on TikTok is far more complex and relies on attuning to wider cultural trends, informational content, and higher-quality production. To get really meta: I wondered if bringing you, lovely readers, sounds was the best way to open up a discussion of trends when the platform was straying so far from where it once was.
But then it seemed like a shift happened. TikTok was back on the sound game. Hell, even the sound of Philomena Cunk was back all over the FYP. Nature was healing.
I think tracking the ebb and flow of trend formats is a fundamental part of understanding TikTok, or any social media platform. These are companies with shifting priorities. One week they may want to push another tech product they offer, the next they might want to reassure the music industry that the song of the summer will be made on their feeds.
As such, I’ll be keeping my eye on platform developments and trending formats. In the meantime, I’ll be delivering freshly baked sounds to your inboxes for the foreseeable future.