The entire nation is in a lockdown, but unlike the virus, controversies cannot be stopped by practicing social distancing. The online war- YouTube vs TikTok has taken many turns already and is the debate of the moment. If you are still confused or clueless, you have come to the right place.
Table of Contents
How did it Start?
It all started with a video uploaded by Elvish Yadav (a popular YouTuber) titled “Elvish Yadav Roasting TikTokers”. As the title suggests, he roasted a few TikTokers saying that based on his personal opinion some of them should not be considered as “Stars” as their content is nothing but trash. This video instigated a few popular TikTokers and Amir Siddiqui being one of them, uploaded a video on IGTV( Instagram TV) to give a reply to the roast. This is where it started getting ugly.
Amir Siddiqui targeted the entire YouTube community and tried to prove that the TikTok community is better than them. The points he made were:
- YouTubers use the videos of TikTokers to get views, thus violating content copyright.
- Despite such violation, TikTokers don’t take any action against them because they believe in supporting each other.
- Unlike the TikTok community, the YouTube community does not have unity and don’t support each other.
- YouTubers follow trends and make similar content.
- YouTubers upload three videos per month whereas TikTokers upload 3-10 videos per day.
- Tiktokers have higher Engagement on all social media platforms, than YouTubers.
- If TikTokers join YouTube, then they will be able to take over the popularity that YouTubers have.
- Unlike YouTubers, the TikTok community does not run after money. Instead, all they want is to create content, spread love, support, and respect each other.
- TikTok has more brands as sponsors compared to YouTube.
He also indirectly called out Elvish for body-shaming and making fun of people’s looks. He emphasized on the point that all content creators should support each other and should not demotivate, troll, or roast anyone. He stated that such videos are hurtful and should not be made. He further said that he does not want to spread hate. He also tagged a few YouTubers in this video.
When did it Escalate?
This video by Amir Siddiqui enraged some YouTubers and YouTube viewers. Although many of them uploaded videos in response to this, the impact of one resulted in escalating this controversy. This impactful video was posted by CarryMinati (Ajey Nagar), a very popular YouTuber, known especially for his roasting videos. He was one of the YouTubers tagged by Amir in his video.
Ajey responded to each point made by Amir. In doing so, he roasted Amir and his fellow TikTokers. He pointed out that despite studying abroad for many years, Amir’s English and logic are not up to the mark and that he uses sympathy to get views. He stated the reasons behind many things which Amir mentioned in his video like the unity of the TikTok community, TikTokers uploading many videos in a day, their high engagement on social media, etc. He also showed a video where Amir himself stated that he would be happy if CarryMinati roasted him. He stressed that such roast videos are meant for comedy and thus should not be taken so seriously or personally.
He made the video in a way which he usually does, using mockery, abuses, and funny comments. People loved the video and within a few days the video broke many records like getting the fastest likes, first Indian YouTube video to reach 10 million likes, second-most liked video all over the world in first 24 hours, and more. Viewers expected the video to break more records. In fact, it was close to being the most liked non-music video on YouTube globally but a week after the video was posted, it was taken down by YouTube. Why? On grounds of cyberbullying and harassment.
This enraged CarryMinati’s fans and it got even uglier. Fans started the hashtag #justiceforcarry which started trending on Twitter. They wanted (and still want) the video to be brought back. Some popular YouTubers like Ashish Chanchlani and Bhuvan Bam supported Ajey. But some people supported YouTube’s decision and called out Ajey for being abusive and harsh. Ajey posted another video urging people to not take his words out of context and to not make assumptions about his intentions while uttering them.
More spark in the controversy
Fans were debating on this and memes were being made when another TikTok user fueled this controversy. This was Amir Siddiqui’s brother, Faisal Siddiqui. Apparently he posted a video on TikTok encouraging acid attacks on women. This led to an even bigger outburst on social media and even caused the chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma to take the initiative to ban the app in India. TikTok suspended Faisal’s account and a cybercrime complaint has also been filed against him. Yet again, another hashtag started trending on Twitter i.e. #BanTikTokIndia.
Faisal took to Instagram to justify his video saying that he had posted it a month back and people were only noticing it now because of the ongoing YouTube vs TikTok controversy. He added that it was not intended to encourage acid attacks.
People are still not happy with this and the TikTok app’s rating shows that. The app had a 4.5-star rating on Google Play Store before, which has now come down to 2. The TikTok Lite app also has a very poor rating of 1.1 now.
Conclusion
This is the whole story of the controversy and the fire is still burning. There always has been a slight debate on the content on TikTok and there have been occasions in the past when people wanted TikTok to be banned in India. In fact, it was banned for a short time. This controversy has again led to people hating on the app. What do you think about this? Go ahead and comment below!
