8 March 2023
Mysterious algorithms help Vietnam TikTok hit go global
Mysterious algorithms help Vietnam TikTok hit go global
'See Tinh' is fun but endless internet scroll teaches us it's bad to be bored
Vietnamese pop singer Hoang Thuy Linh's song "See Tinh" has gone viral on TikTok, with people around the world from Ecuador to the Philippines uploading videos of themselves dancing to the infectious tune. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by TikTok Vietnam and the LEADER Entertainment Vietnam)LIEN HOANGMarch 8, 2023 11:00 JST
Hoang Thuy Linh, a pop singer with folk influences and a taste for fluorescent outfits, wants to bring Vietnamese music and folklore to the world. She probably did not imagine that it would be channeled through dancing Brazilian soldiers and smack-talking South Korean athletes.
Linh's witty summer hit, "See Tinh," a play on the word "lovesick" in Vietnamese, has taken on a second life in the way that only social media posts can: as a TikTok dance challenge. The company tells me it has had 1.2 billion views of clips tagged #seetinh, mainly by people doing a silly dance to the song.
This could be a tale of a rare artist showing the globe what Vietnam has to offer -- a tale of how industries from music to e-commerce survive in an era of mysterious and addictive TikTok algorithms. Or it could be a flash in the pan -- 20 seconds of fun before we swipe next on our 4-inch screens.
The fun is certainly there. I defy anyone to watch these "See Tinh" remixes and not feel better. One upload shows a pair of white men in combat fatigues, one holding a Brazilian flag, the other saluting gravely but then bursting into dance.
Social media is not all hashtags and dance-offs -- internet advertisers have learned to commodify our trillions of views. But if we are to be tracked and spend hours on the endless scroll, perhaps we could get something of substance in return, such as a singer from an overlooked country breaking into a global music scene dominated by the West, K-pop and Latin artists.
Linh was an established star in Vietnam before "See Tinh." Born in 1988, her life in the public eye has included time as a child actor, a sex tape scandal and multiple albums and awards. Then came "See Tinh," which gained 42 million views as a YouTube video in 2022, its main character dressed like a pink-haired pixie blending saccharine harmonies, psychedelic animation and a love story drawing on rustic mythology.
It was a TikTok remix with K-pop choreography that made "See Tinh" an international hit. Social media users around the world are doing the dance to Linh's chorus -- in South Korea a volleyball match turned into a "See Tinh" dance battle. It works because it is unexpected, the sexy moves popping up among people in sports jerseys, hard hats or flowing African robes.
In retrospect it looks obvious that Linh had a winning formula for our digital epoch. Yet for every breakout hit, there are a million others with a similar formula who fail to make a career as social media influencers. It is said that anyone now can be discovered via the internet. But are we happier and less powerless than before we carried the world around in our palms?
It is easy to feel adrift in an unknowable metaverse of faceless gatekeepers from Spotify to Twitch. It is the nausea you get in a Jean-Paul Sartre novel or in entering Jorge Luis Borges' short story, "The Library of Babel." We are all necessary -- or at least millions of us are -- to create a cultural moment, but few of us have the ability to control or understand it.
I'm not sure that even internet gatekeepers have this power. When I called a TikTok employee about "See Tinh" she wanted to know if I wanted to know how actively her company promoted it.
Hoang Thuy Linh's TikTok page: The company says it has had 1.2 billion views of clips tagged #seetinh. (Screenshot from Hoang Thuy Linh's TikTok page)
Even by standards of the social web, TikTok is near-legendary for its unknowable algorithm's knack for hooking viewers on its product. The opacity in its data use goes further: Forbes reports that TikTok spied on its journalists following leaks about the tech startup's data links with China.
But algorithms' choices are sometimes as enigmatic to the coders who create them as they are to the rest of us. "See Tinh" may have caught fire because of its easy moves and easy lyrics. Or the key may have been its whistle riff, which has worked for indie rockers Peter Bjorn and John in Sweden and the group Foster the People in the U.S. Or it may have benefited from TikTok's ability to recommend content to different batches of people to help predict what will get traction.
TikTok Vietnam head of product operations Nicholas Pham would only tell me that music is "the glue that connects TikTok's community" so people "bring their own spin to the latest trend." He added that Linh's tune has a "memorable melody and distinctive whistle."
Digital media has spawned a generation of people who feed the beast with daily content, who live and die by algorithms. For music, that means writing intros that quickly grab listeners who can choose from an infinite playlist. For online shopping, it means live-streaming your product with speed and spirit to get it seen before the next new-age infomercial.
Linh has shilled for beer and makeup companies, while staking out a niche as a pop princess spreading traditional culture with club beats. She lives in a time when screens teach people that it is bad to be bored, when short videos offer frivolous chipmunk memes and toxic conspiracies.
But "snackable" videos also offer subcultures for the marginalized, tutorials and breaking news. Tanzanians or Indians dancing to "See Tinh" could look up the singer and learn a little about Vietnamese literature, Buddhist musical instruments, ethnic groups' fashions or Mekong region flora and fauna. Unless they have already moved on to the next digital sensation.
Lien Hoang is a Nikkei Asia correspondent in Ho Chi Minh City.
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