Read on Twitter
1/ This turned out to be a much more interesting dataset than I anticipated. I'll narrate.
@tiktok_us @davejorgenson @hankgreen @profgalloway
@tiktok_us @davejorgenson @hankgreen @profgalloway
2/ The first thing that jumps out is the massive spike correlated with the start of school. This makes sense. The original discoverers of TikTok were able to transmit the app between disconnected friend groups for the first time.
3/ I joined TikTok over the holidays in 2019 when my younger sister came home from college. The Christmas Bump is when TikTok lept between the insulated bubbles of student social life and began to transmit over vast social distance. This is where TikTok "crossed the chasm"
4/ Fortunately for TikTok, and extremely unfortunately for us, a global pandemic started. All of a sudden we had nothing better to do than watch our screens. Blast off 
This is when the first wave of the early majority jumped on board.
This is when the first wave of the early majority jumped on board.
5/ The rest of the early majority got on board over the pandemic summer and now they've saturated the wider social circles opened by the Christmas Bump. The only place to go from here is up (in age that is)
6/ Overlaid is a graph of searches for "tiktok algorithm." Interestingly, there is a clear correlation between spikes in interest in the algorithm and spikes in interest in the app itself
7/ Two distinct correlations appear. In the beginning and end - wider gap between algorithm interest and user interest. In the middle, gap is short to overlapping.
8/ My hypothesis is that interest in the algorithm is not a prime motivator for the innovators and the majority, but played a large role in motivating the late early-adopters and early early-majority. The chasm was jumped because of interest in the algorithm.
9/ Anecdotally, this was a major reason I joined. Take that bias how you will. But no doubt that "the algorithm" was a huge topic of conversation among TikTok users when TikTok became noticed by the majority of the world.
10/ Large search results through the summer were likely a result of President Trump buying, not buying, ban-attempting, and eventually having the door thrown in his face about TikTok becoming and American company
11/ This explosion out of the youth age bracket saw the rise of corporate TikTok accounts and an increase in age diversity on the platform. Not much diversity, but more. TikTok was now known by everyone in the USA.
12/ As we move to the tail of the early majority, interest in the app because of interest in the algorithm tapers off. We see decompression towards the levels seen in the beginning.
13/ TikTok the global super-app is a product of two innovations and an extraordinary stroke of pandemic luck. 1) Fantastic vertical video content creation mechanisms, from editing to sound sharing. 2) An utterly brilliant consumer UX built on a remarkably accurate algo.
14/ My reason for looking was to see how much the public understands about algorithms and it seems clear to me that the citizens of the 21st century understand what an algorithm is and how powerful they are. Feel free to speculate on the ramifications of this shift.
