I often wonder what Andy Warhol would think about current celebrity culture, given his most attributed quote about a universal 15-minute notoriety. Which is not even verbatim, apparently. Prophecy aside, what would the visual artist make of the 21st century sea of trashy reality TV and viral reels?
Putting people on a pedestal traces back to royalty and religious figures throughout history. This, apart from making Jesus the OG influencer and another pun about God-shaped holes, demonstrates how an innate aspirational desire existed even before the advent of mass media. It’s almost like preparation met opportunity with the rise of Hollywood, tabloid culture and the successive Internet-accelerated commodification of fame.
There’s plenty of literature exploring celebrity impact on societal dynamics, but would it be fair to say the root of the obsession is a little more complex? Quite literally anyone can cultivate a fan base; without even being human. First, it was pets, now it’s AI thirst traps.
You have to admit the metrics are inconsistent too. Widespread circulation and exponential interconnectivity of diverse platforms today allow individuals of various fields to gain recognition, even going on to become an international phenomenon. Yet, we don’t necessarily regard their achievements with the same weight as the ones within the entertainment industry. Say, a semi-decent actor versus an exceptional... accountant. The extent of our interest can be equated with how much time these personalities spend in the spotlight; their relevance a parallel to how prominent they remain after we notice them, whether for their careers or their antics, à la Musk, Trump, etc.
So what fundamental aspects of human psychology does this enduring allure reflect? Why do we confer this status to entertainers, specifically? What makes fame increasingly enticing to each subsequent generation since? To loosely quote a TikTokker, “Think about it—medieval peasants didn’t ask the jester for a photo after his courtroom fart.”
I’m not against celebrities; I’m just not for inflating a performance beyond what it is. Being influenced is one thing, idolising is another. It’s that eternal debate of whether we should divorce a person’s work from their conduct, no doubt prompted by the characters we’ve dubbed "tortured geniuses".
If anything, these may be the least prospects whose behaviour we’d want to emulate. The very nature of the profession demands a certain spoonful of egocentric attributes. Worse still if said personas were thrown into a star-making machine from an impressionable age (doesn’t help that K-pop trainees eventually graduate to become ‘idols’).
Imagine spending your formative season ingrained with the need to be validated because your worth is directly proportionate to public opinion. Imagine being constantly engulfed by people who relate to you like a product because they have a job to do. What sort of worldview would that shape?
I’d argue that present-day fame transcends escapism. It has gone a little deeper beyond connection to identification, and thus emotional attachment. We surely know better than to consider everyone with a voice a role model, but in a time where fame is powered by the very attention and admiration we give, let’s perhaps not freely relinquish this respect and value to a fallible sense of extraordinary.
Early this month, we saw one of the nation's senators interrogating our fellow countrymen, TikTok CEO Shouzi Chew, on his citizenship. You know, because it's apparently still the '90s where the Western world thinks Singapore is a part of China. Last week, President Joe Biden joined TikTok. A somewhat timely move after resurfacing age issues.
This week, we've got Former (and potentially next!) President Donald Trump with the most random sneaker drop. This comes hot on the heels of some pretty gangster remarks the Republican made about US' NATO allies at a campaign rally. Oh, and literally a day after he was ordered to pay more than USD355 million in a civil fraud case (basically, he and his entourage are accused of inflating certain property and asset values).
The all-gold kicks, which the business mogul/TV personality/politician/criminal(??) announced at Sneaker Con Philadelphia over the weekend, come emblazoned with a 'T', '45' and of course, the American flag. Also sporting a red sole, which essentially makes it you know, Louboutins for men. At USD399 a pop, the only thing we think is missing is probably a bald eagle on the tongue.
The preorders have already sold out. The highest bid for a signed pair went for USD9,000 (to Roman Sharf, who the media mislabeled as a Russian Oligarch CEO, but that's a whole other story).
Interestingly, the website states that these products are not designed, manufactured, distributed by Trump. Rather, simply using his "name, image and likeness under a license agreement". Besides having like-branded cologne amongst the strange inventory, the fine print also spells that the items only ship out months later.
What a way to remind us that you're running for a reelection.
Guess what—being a Scrooge is cool now. Thrifty is the new sexy. Being cheap is being rich. Can't say we never saw this coming. General equilibrium theory and all that jazz. Every oversaturation has to one day come to a reset, and it's no different with people and their spending habits.
Perhaps learning their lesson from millennials who couldn't afford houses thanks to avocado toast tendencies, Gen Zs are now taking a financial responsibility a lot more seriously than the generation before.
In so many words, Loud Budgeting is a trendy name for the personal finance strategy (if you will) that is all about unabashedly making wise spending decisions. Explained by TikTok-er Lukas Battle, it opposes 2023's 'Quiet Luxury' (please don't make us explain this), and because the rich allegedly hate spending money, following their cue is in fact "more chic, more stylish, more of a flex".
Don't you just love the TikTok generation? Casually, singlehandedly eradicating the negative stigmas surrounding saving so we can finally prioritise and reach financial goals without shame. The "Loud" bit attributes to the communication part of it. Setting honest boundaries and having open dialogues about your newfound relationship with money; basically unapologetically rejecting invites because it costs too much.
Kidding. Besides coming up with alternative plans to uh, financially unaligned hangouts, recommendations include opening high-yield savings account to earn interest, canceling under-utilised credit card subscriptions or renegotiating rates with current providers.
In local context, this rides on the back of a recent report on minimum household income required amid inflation impact. With latest figures rising by five percent, researchers found that the “reasonable starting point” for a living wage in Singapore was SGD2,990 monthly.
If anyone is feeling the pinch, it's surely in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Throw in the tired trope about being Crazy, Asian, but not rich. And while many particularly of Chinese descent may have had a frugal mindset indoctrinated in us since youth, it has never been a lifestyle to flaunt. So this trend, while eyeroll-worthy in hype, is essentially useful these nine percent GST days.
When done without being extreme about it, we can see how Loud Budgeting will truly benefit us all in the long run. You go, Gen Z.
When he was 13, TikTok creator Nolan Daniel White visited the newly opened A Lange & Söhne boutique in Miami, where a saint-patient salesman named Aleksandr forgot about his commission for a couple of hours, while he draped White's skinny wrist in five- and six-figure watches. Wandering out, now one of the few middle-schoolers who could tell a GMT from a tourbillon, he swore that when he was no longer making paper-round money, he'd get one on his arm again. It took him seven years.
Granted, his white gold Saxonia was a loaner, part of a #sponcon hook-up with Hodinkee, as the watch-blog-turned-retailer tried to tap his Gen Z audience. But just feeling the alligator leather on his wrist, seeing the dial slide from white to dark grey as it caught the light, felt good. So as well as the contracted Instagram post, he fired off a TikTok.
More than 55,000 people follow White on IG. A handful double-tapped the Saxonia. But on TikTok, his paean to Glasshüten horology racked up 100,000 views, thousands of hearts, hundreds of comments. It wasn't an outlier. White posts watch stuff sporadically—mostly his menswear-centred channel is influencer standbys like buying guides and shopping trips in his Montreal hometown—but if it ticks, TikTok loves it. His most-viewed video ever, posted this January, is a 60-second bio of Phillipe Dufour, the one-man manufacture behind the most complex wristwatches ever assembled.
"I'm always considering, how can I make something quite niche appeal to a wide audience who might not know that an automatic movement even exists?" he says. "I kind of see myself as a bit of an entry point." And compared to Instagram, which has gone from cool-kids enclave to the de facto town square for every dealer, collector and brand, TikTok is the wild west. Its algorithm, a modern-day philosopher's stone that can transform base content into gold, remains inscrutable, discussed in hushed terms by would-be influencers as if it's listening (which, according to rumours about ByteDance's relationship with the Chinese government, it might be).
"Instagram used to be how a younger demographic—late-20s to early-30s—would get into watches," says Zoe Abelson, founder of vintage dealership Graal. "But at first it was a very niche collecting hobby and a lot of dealers didn't use it to their advantage. And it became one of my biggest sources of new clients." She thinks TikTok's in that early stage. Or, perhaps, an even more manic stage that Instagram, a much simpler concept, never went through. "The audience is even younger, and they're getting just a sliver of access to what the watch world is really about. It's honestly not the best representation of watches and I don't know if enough people that could really represent the watch world—in my mind, properly—will ever get to TikTok."
Even the people who are there haven't figured out what users—ergo, the algo—want. Right now, it seems to be a mix of 47th Street watch traders, celeb-spotting, and nerdery. Plus, of course, endless call-outs, because every platform's algorithm rewards beef. It's a lot of fun—a weird, anarchic kind of fun. Want to see a 22-year-old flipping Rolexes in a train station car park? Here's Vookum. Prefer an angry Irishman calling out celebrity fakes? That'd be Nico Leonard. Or maybe you just want to know what watches random New Yorkers are wearing and how they got them. If so, Mike Nouveau has your back.
Disparate as they seem, one thing does link them. "Storytelling," says Nouveau, a vintage watch dealer and buyer at Craft + Tailored. TikTok is about narrative, whether a tense negotiation or quickfire biography. And it's hungry. "You have to post every single day, and a story every single day, that's the tricky part. Then it starts trending downward and you think, OK, now I have to think up something different that's still within the realm of watches."
Which is perhaps why some of WatchTok's biggest stars aren't really Watch Guys at all. Brad Podray, aka Scumbag Dad, started mixing in watches with his parody character as a way to confuse people. "I like feeding my audience crazy comedy and then giving them content whiplash with a watch post or a dental concepts lesson," he says (in his non-TikTok life, he's an orthodontist). But his posts reflect his taste—strange time-tellers, like the magnetic ball bearings on the Eone Bradley, or the almost completely illegible Time Adds Up by Project Watches. "I find that the more confusing watches work best on TikTok. If a watch is difficult to read or people argue whether it’s worth the price, it gets more engagement."
They're affordable, too, which appeals to a neophyte audience. Though TikTok's youth is generally overstated—yes, most of the people creating content are Gen Zs, but there are as many millennials watching these days—the hardcore collector crew is still on Instagram. "The majority of my followers are people that have never been into watches and watch collecting," says Ben Cook, aka @ben_watches, whose best-performers tend to be budget buys, Rolex alternatives and pricking the more ridiculous bits of watch culture. They're versed in TikTok, but not haute horlogerie, so something authentic always beats the perfect wrist roll. "On TikTok, it feels like people are more dedicated to 'keeping it real'," Cook says. "I like to state exactly what I think and not worry about what others think. It allows for more debate."
That might be why the big boys are struggling to transition. DailyWatch, followed by more than 2.5m on IG, barely scrapes four figure views on TikTok. Fratello, founder of the #speedytuesday hashtag, has fewer than 15,000 followers. Hodinkee, despite dabbling in TikTok since 2021, has mustered only 286 likes. And yet the #hodinkee hashtag has more than 16m views, as others piggyback on the defining voice of the Instagram era.
But if the major players haven't reached TikTok yet, the Watches 2.0 world they created has. Brynn Wallner, founder of female-focused watch magazine Dimepiece, has heard the siren call but so far resisted. Terms she coined, however—describing the Cartier Panthère as the 'It Girl Watch', or the industry's pink-it-and-shrink-it tendencies as "teeny-tinies"—are proliferating regardless. "I do wonder if Instagram is going to end up like people of my generation see Facebook," she says—old, irrelevant, infuriating.
There is, she admits, a twinge of jealousy. "I spent two years getting up to nearly 40,000 followers. On TikTok, you could do it in two months." But—in what she stresses isn't her shouting-at-clouds moment—she's put off by TikTok's algorithmic catnip. "It's very consumer-forward, the push for virality is the biggest thing." The finer details of George Daniels' co-axial escapement won't grab someone coming in cold, which is why 'For You' is dominated by content pegged on celebrities and big brands.
Not that much of it is created by any of those big brands. Rolex owns its channel but hasn't posted, ditto Audemars Piguet, and Patek Philipe has people squatting its handle. The kind of first-proper-watch brands that do well with young audiences, like Tissot and Hamilton, have barely dipped a toe into the platform.
"But no brands are good on TikTok," says Nouveau. The advertiser land grab is starting, slowly—revenues trebled from $3.88bn to $11.6bn last year, still a fraction of Meta's $113 billion—but it's still a tricky place to make branded content work, with as much risk as reward. Duolingo and Ryanair have cracked it by seemingly not caring about cracking it. "You need to be super-ironic, very knowing," says Nouveau. Words that are anathema in Geneva.
One brand that does seem to get it is Tag Heuer, which has embraced the platform's nuances as it has racked up over 1.7 million followers and 7.3 million likes. "Over time we’ve seen a sanitisation of social platforms," says creative communications director Pascal Tea. "But the most successful TikTok content we’ve seen is whenever we can have an open dialogue with our audience and create content that excites them. It’s conversational, creative, inspirational and entertaining."
Wherever TikTok goes, it's unlikely to be an Instagram-killer. That's still where deals are done, Nouveau says, in part because TikTok's messaging and archiving features are so janky. But the new app opens new doors. On IG, potential clients have to find you. On TikTok, you're thrust at them. "I wasn't even going to put my face in the videos, but within my first week, I had someone offer me 50 watches that he and his father had collected," says Nouveau. "As a vintage watch dealer, the hard part is finding watches. They're very easy to sell, if you have high-quality stuff. So within the first week I thought, OK, TikTok is kind of interesting. I have access to an audience that's been completely ignored."
Originally published on Esquire UK
As scrutiny over TikTok reaches a breaking point, CEO Shou Zi Chew finds himself in a peculiar position. The United States government is looking to ban the app, and Chew is right there, front and center, to defend the company's practices. Unfortunately, his appearance before the panel last March is a clear indication that the app's future in the country is in jeopardy.
Not much is known about Shou Zi Chew, or how TikTok exactly operates under his leadership. Speaking to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee last March, the embattled CEO faced the public for the first time. There, he answered questions about the app's user privacy policies, data security, and alleged ties to China.
Suffice it to say, we have a long way to go before we see TikTok get banned in the U.S. Here is what we know so far about Chew and the next steps following the hearing.
The general public doesn't exactly know much about Chew. But he is, however, respected within tech communities in the U.S. and China.
Chew is a self-described "Singaporean based in Singapore" who attended Hwa Chong Institution before serving as a commissioned officer in the Singapore Armed Forces. He would go on to attend and graduate from University College London with a Bacher of Economics degree. The TikTok CEO would then attend Harvard Business School, where he completed his Master of Business Administration degree. During his MBA, he interned for then-start-up Facebook.
The Singaporean entrepreneur spent five years at the investment firm DST followed by a stint with Goldman Sachs for another two years. Chew was also once the chief financial officer and international president of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi.
Meanwhile, the team he worked with at DST became early investors of the global incubator ByteDance, of which TikTok is a subsidiary. In 2021, he joined ByteDance as its chief financial officer, as well. Two months later, he would become TikTok's CEO after the shock resignation of his predecessor Kevin Mayer.
For some context, Chew faced the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce as the clamor for TikTok to get banned gains traction in the U.S. There are approximately 150 million Americans on TikTok today, and national security experts have raised concerns over the app becoming a Chinese propaganda tool. He was also questioned over ByteDance's ties with the Chinese Communist Party.
As it stands, TikTok is banned on any federal government device in the U.S, including in the military. The American Supreme Court, on the other hand, is investigating ByteDance for possible data breaches and security issues.
During the hearing, the 40-year-old Chew confirmed that user data can indeed be accessed by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. “We rely on global interoperability, and we have employees in China, so yes, the Chinese engineers do have access to global data," he said in front of that panel.
The Singaporean CEO, however, squashed concerns about data security by reassuring the panel that U.S. user data is protected from unauthorized foreign access through a firewall.
As scrutiny over TikTok reaches a breaking point, CEO Shou Zi Chew finds himself in a peculiar position. The United States government is looking to ban the app, and Chew is right there, front and center, to defend the company's practices. Unfortunately, his appearance before the panel last March is a clear indication that the app's future in the country is in jeopardy.
Not much is known about Shou Zi Chew, or how TikTok exactly operates under his leadership. Speaking to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee last March, the embattled CEO faced the public for the first time. There, he answered questions about the app's user privacy policies, data security, and alleged ties to China.
Suffice it to say, we have a long way to go before we see TikTok get banned in the U.S. Here is what we know so far about Chew and the next steps following the hearing.
The general public doesn't exactly know much about Chew. But he is, however, respected within tech communities in the U.S. and China.
Chew is a self-described "Singaporean based in Singapore" who attended Hwa Chong Institution before serving as a commissioned officer in the Singapore Armed Forces. He would go on to attend and graduate from University College London with a Bacher of Economics degree. The TikTok CEO would then attend Harvard Business School, where he completed his Master of Business Administration degree. During his MBA, he interned for then-start-up Facebook.
The Singaporean entrepreneur spent five years at the investment firm DST followed by a stint with Goldman Sachs for another two years. Chew was also once the chief financial officer and international president of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi.
Meanwhile, the team he worked with at DST became early investors of the global incubator ByteDance, of which TikTok is a subsidiary. In 2021, he joined ByteDance as its chief financial officer, as well. Two months later, he would become TikTok's CEO after the shock resignation of his predecessor Kevin Mayer.
For some context, Chew faced the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce as the clamor for TikTok to get banned gains traction in the U.S. There are approximately 150 million Americans on TikTok today, and national security experts have raised concerns over the app becoming a Chinese propaganda tool. He was also questioned over ByteDance's ties with the Chinese Communist Party.
As it stands, TikTok is banned on any federal government device in the U.S, including in the military. The American Supreme Court, on the other hand, is investigating ByteDance for possible data breaches and security issues.
During the hearing, the 40-year-old Chew confirmed that user data can indeed be accessed by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. “We rely on global interoperability, and we have employees in China, so yes, the Chinese engineers do have access to global data," he said in front of that panel.
The Singaporean CEO, however, squashed concerns about data security by reassuring the panel that U.S. user data is protected from unauthorized foreign access through a firewall.
"Today, U.S. TikTok data is stored by default in Oracle's servers," the CEO added. "Only vetted personnel operating in a new company, called TikTok U.S. Data Security, can control access to this data... The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel."
The Harvard-educated entrepreneur also explained that he has never spoken to a Chinese government official since joining TikTok. He also claims that he has no evidence to present that says that users' data had been accessed by the Chinese government. According to him, TikTok will be sending American user data to an independent American board for review.
Chew also pointed out that its practices are no different from its competitors during the heated five-hour hearing. At one point, Washington Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the committee, simply told the CEO: “Your platform should be banned.”
The app nevertheless faces uncertainty moving forward as more US state officials' suspicions grow.
