Teens are selling products on TikTok Shop between classes
High schoolers are bringing in millions of views using TikTok Shop, despite the fact that TikTok forbids minors from applying to the program.
High schoolers are testing out their social media marketing skills with a new side gig: TikTok Shop. Teens on the app are bringing in millions of views using the new feature, despite the fact that TikTok forbids minors from applying to the program.
NBC News identified six TikTok accounts that have published dozens of TikTok Shop videos over the past two weeks. The creators all identified publicly as under the age of 18.
In a statement responding to questions about the presence of teens on TikTok Shop, a TikTok representative said, “As TikTok Shop rolls out in the US, we continue to evolve our safeguards and are taking steps to address this issue.” TikTok asks users for their age when signing up for an account, which offers a loophole — kids can pretend to be older.
The findings are the latest demonstration of how users are quickly taking advantage of the relatively new TikTok Shop functionality to make money. The feature, launched in September, has rapidly gained popularity and TikTok has appeared to struggle to moderate how people are using it. It also demonstrates the rapid influence that TikTok Shop’s new system, which encourages the fast production of internet advertising by creators, is having on the internet.
One of the creators, who said on his profile (which had over 33,000 followers) that he was 16, made a TikTok Shop advertisement for $4 women’s leggings that said the wearer “may get pregnant” — a joke about how good the wearer would look in the leggings. In the video, the teen danced to “Billie Jean” (in which Michael Jackson sings, “But the kid is not my son ... ”). Another video the same teen made advertising the leggings, in which he imagined a “10/10 baddie” wearing them, has over 1.1 million views.
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