On a stormy night in October, a handful of students met for the first time at the Manhattan campus of Columbia University. It was 11pm, cold and raining, but the group trekked here after being summoned by text messages and flyers pasted to dormitory doors and in the library. They were here to, in the words of one student at the meeting, “become TikTok famous”.

This was the inaugural meeting of Columbia University’s first club devoted to TikTok, the latest social media app to capture the attention of teenagers. It’s a short-form video app that offers users sophisticated editing tools and visual effects; lip-syncing, comedy sketches and “challenge” dance videos dominate TikTok, which is free to use.

Financial Times