From the outside looking in a lot of their success came from sexualizing (underage) teenage girls. Don't know if that would've flown as well if the app had come out of Facebook or a different American tech giant.
Is there a way a social app targeted at young people in the US doesn't end up looking as if their success comes from sexualizing girls? I don't use any social media, but Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat also seemed to me like that in their early stages. Maybe Whatsapp is an exception, and that might be why they largely failed here but took off elsewhere.
I think the difference maker is that new social media apps like TikTok are artificially promoting this content from day zero via algorithms as opposed to Facebook and instagram which started by showing that content only from within your own network or through your own intentional curation. Now the second they identify a male you get a discover page full of bikini pictures and women bending over in yoga pants whether you want it or not. And of course this brings all the teenagers to the yard, and older predatory males with deeper pockets... “we’d love to have you model for us!” comments all over the place the second a pretty girl puts her profile to public.
