Kids grow up having dream jobs. Maybe they hope to be a  fireman, an astronaut, or a movie star. In our day in age kids dream of becoming social media influencers, and more specifically, Tik Tok influencers.

With TikTok being absolutely everywhere in our day-to-day life, from Superbowl commercials to in your home, it’s hard to ignore. But who makes these videos? Do they make money for getting a hit video?

The answer is yes, people have been making careers on Tik Tok, but not everybody can.  Sure, anybody can make a Tik Tok account and videos for free, but companies will pay people to promote their goods if they get views. It is estimated that Tik Tok’s biggest star, Charlie Damelio, has made $8 million from making Tik Tok videos and anyone can make videos as she did. 

Tik Tok has an estimated 500 million viewers as of 2020 meaning you’re chance of getting some of those 500 million to view a video is high. Tik Tok runs off of an algorithm which means if people like the videos that you’re posting it will show it to more people. This means anyone can post anything and go instantly viral, or potentially get no views, depending on if TikTok wants it to go viral or not. It is thought that the better-looking video the more likely it will be pushed out to people, but this is not proven. 

Better means higher quality of the video, relatable videos, or something that makes a person happy watching it. TikTok will push these videos out to people because people enjoy seeing them. “I tried making TikToks once as a joke with friends, but it was very hard to get many views”, said Salvador Guerrero-Lopez, a Chardon High School sophomore.

When you start making videos and get a lot of views how do you make money? TikTok has what is called the “creator fund” which gives you 2-4 cents per 1,000 views or $40 per 1,000,000 views. You must have 10,000 followers and have a certain amount of views, but this won’t make you much money even if you get a lot of viral videos.

“ The Tik Tok creator fund is good for creators but doesn’t pay as much as other social platforms,” said Kristin Vitt, a Tik Tok content creator. “If my video with 13 million views was on youtube they would have paid hundreds of thousands but TikTok pays a couple hundred.”

So how are TikTok stars making this their full-time job? With millions of people on the app, people watch lots of videos. TikTok does not run ads between videos meaning companies can advertise through people instead of the app itself. Popular tv channel “ABC’ averages 5.7 million viewers and companies will pay around $115,000 to get a 30 second to add to their viewers. On TikTok brands will pay anywhere from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars to get a creator to promote the brand. More and more companies promote on TikTok rather than TV 

because of this, making it easier and easier to get brand deals. Kristin said, “Once my video got 13 million views I instantly got lots of brands reaching out to me either wanting me to show their product or to offer me money to

With people getting brand deals they make lots of money. Making 2 $1000 brand deals per day or even week will make you over $100,000 per year which is a very high salary for someone just making fun videos. So yes, you can make a good living if you are a popular TikTok, but it does not mean just make a video and go viral all the time. It has to be well done mixed with a little bit of luck.

Trying to become a TikTok creator as a job is risky and very hard. Having millions of people on the app means there lots of viewers, but it also means other people are competing to get viral just like you. The chances of going to TikTok famous are one in 500 million which is less of a chance than winning the lottery. 

The other problem with making it a job is that TikTok may not last forever. Many other apps similar to TikTok such as Vine and Musical.ly have been very popular for many years then get deleted or die down. Salvador says, “ TikTok will eventually plateau and everyone will move to another app because there are apps like Instagram that were popular before TikTok.” While Kristin said, “Tiktok can grow to be bigger but they need to pay more to keep their big creators on the platform.”

So being able to live off of TikTok is possible, but you need to put in the effort. It is very easy to go viral if you make a very good video, but just as likely that the video will fail. It’s the consistency of uploading and the quality of the videos that TikTok will notice and boost. It is more likely you can make it work if you try hard. Trying hard and failing just is a bigger chance on TikTok than trying hard and succeeding. For many of those people who get hits, they can make money and live off of it for their life, but it’s a very risky goal and not as guaranteed as other jobs, and that is why people typically frown upon it.