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evening sitdown

Your evening longread: How TikTok chooses which songs go viral

We bring you an interesting longread each evening to take your mind off the news.

EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday. And now, every weeknight, we bring you an evening longread to enjoy which will help you to escape the news cycle. 

We’ll be keeping an eye on new longreads and digging back into the archives for some classics.

TikTok and viral songs

Here’s a fascinating look at how songs go viral on TikTok – it’s not quite a chance thing.

(Bloomberg, 8 mins reading time)

TikTok, a social network where people post short videos, often set to music, has become this generation’s hit machine. Like many TikTok sensations, Savage appeared to bubble up spontaneously from the enthusiasm of its users, who choreographed their own dances for the song, introducing it to other fans who watched those videos tens of millions of times. That mysterious formula for success on TikTok has turned the app into the most important new social media platform in years—which in turn thrust it into the center of a major geopolitical dispute.

Read all the Evening Longreads here> 

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