TikTok has irreversibly bent our tradition’s trajectory, however that doesn’t ensure it’ll be round to harvest the advantages. (India banned the app way back, and it’s below rising scrutiny in a handful of different international locations.) It has walked the political tightrope this a long way, however any dangerous PR may just knock it off. Possibly that’s why TikTok’s leader comms officer—who used to paintings in US politics herself—made a display of recording my dialog with Chunk together with her telephone.
The overprotectiveness isn’t sudden, in fact. TikTok is aware of Chunk can’t play the sport in rather the similar means lots of his Silicon Valley opposite numbers do (taunting the media, for instance, will all the time be off-limits for him). As a substitute, he has selected a gentler roughly evangelism, telling folks that issues in reality are nicer in his walled lawn, if handiest they’ll give the app an opportunity. And that the lawn might be even nicer if all of us produce extra content material.
This interview has been edited for period and readability.
Shou Zi Chunk: Nearly each time I seek advice from a brand new town, I try to meet a couple of creators. After which I apply them on my TikTok. So it turns into like a friendship, sending messages, and we simply keep in contact.
Dexter Thomas: This is cool.
It’s in reality a laugh, yeah. [Chew pulls out his phone.] Apply me, I’m @shou.time. I’m going to apply you.
OK.
That is you, proper? [reading from my first post] Uh, your caption says, “This can be a horrible app.”
Neatly, I didn’t adore it again then as it was once all Musical.ly youngsters. My opinion has modified.
You’ve got handiest two feedback in this publish. OK. You will have to publish extra.
I will have to. However at this time, right here we’re in Mesa, Arizona, on the first are living TikTok live performance. Why Mesa?
Neatly, the elements is improbable this time of the 12 months.
I suppose, however why now not Los Angeles? Why now not New York? Is that this a comfortable release to look if it really works?
With the primary time, you be sure you arrange your expectancies, proper? It will be significant that the development is going easily. The entire level was once, how will we make the most efficient of era offline, on-line?
I additionally pay attention you’re sponsoring the Met Gala.
Yeah.
Why?
Why now not? Did you notice the click liberate about it? It’s very cultural. Style is a shockingly essential a part of TikTok. Louis Vuitton has 12 million fans on our app.
I feel the sector doesn’t know a lot about you as an individual. So let’s go away TikTok on my own. Who’s Shou Zi Chunk?
Oh, who am I? I grew up in Singapore. I used to be born there, my great-grandfather moved there a few years in the past. I had an ordinary Singaporean adolescence. I sought after to look the sector, as a result of Singapore is improbable, however it’s tiny. So I went to the United Kingdom for varsity. I joined Goldman Sachs, labored there for a few years, met an web entrepreneur who began an funding corporate to put money into Fb. So I joined him, and thru that I met the man who based ByteDance. And in his earliest iteration, the speculation was once so easy, however so tough. So I met him in 2012, and … [The door opens and a couple walks in. They are the owners of AZ Taco King.]