| The social-media platform is transforming the music industry. Is that a good thing?  Illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath In today’s social-media world, everyone is a creator—and on TikTok, which has captured the attention of sixty-seven per cent of all American teen-agers, anyone can find their niche. “There’s Comedy TikTok, Football TikTok, Alt TikTok, Cooking TikTok, Conspiracy TikTok, and BookTok. What was once just TikTok is now referred to as Straight TikTok,” John Seabrook writes, in a deep dive in this week’s issue into how the platform has reshaped the music industry. Seabrook follows Katherine Li, a nineteen-year-old Canadian college student majoring in commerce, who started recording songs she had written during the pandemic—her theme is unrequited love—on TikTok. “I was always in my room,” she said, “writing snippets of songs.” Eventually, she went viral. The story explores how TikTok has converted even skeptics, such as Florence Welch, the front woman of Florence and the Machine. Welch called the platform “anarchic and hilarious and weird,” noting, “Like, if I just want to drink fake blood in a graveyard, TikTok is an environment that would embrace that.” But behind TikTok’s vibrant façade is a complex, carefully designed environment collecting user data, which some governments view as a major security risk. Will concerns about surveillance be enough to deter creators and artists, or will they continue to use the platform, so long as they’re having fun—and making money? “The TikTok algorithm,” as Seabrook writes, is “the sun around which the music industry orbits, and the arbiter-in-chief of what’s hot.” —Jessie Li, newsletter editor Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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