It may be hard to believe that an app as usually innocuous as TikTok could force the hand of a major government agency but it has somehow happened.

A TikTok video allegedly inspired a challenge to commit acts of violence at schools on December 17th across the United States, and after videos about the potential danger began to spread across TikTok using hashtags like #december17, even the DHS felt they needed to comment publically on the subject as many parents and children were wary of going to school on Friday.

“DHS does not have any information indicating any specific, credible threats to schools but recommends communities remain alert,” the DHS said via Twitter.

While the rumors of violence have skyrocketed, it seems neither the Department of Homeland Security nor TikTok themselves has been able to find credible information about actual threats. The TikTok Communications Team commented on the situation on Twitter.

“We handle even rumored threats with utmost seriousness, which is why we’re working with law enforcement to look into warnings about potential violence at schools even though we have not found evidence of such threats originating or spreading via TikTok….

Local authorities, the FBI, and DHS have confirmed there’s no credible threat, so we’re working to remove alarmist warnings that violate our misinformation policy. If we did find promotion of violence on our platform, we’d remove and report it to law enforcement.”

Despite TikTok’s claims of removing videos about December 17th, an entire discover page for the rumor exists, with videos about it having already gotten over 79.3K views. While no major violent acts seem to have been reported yet at United States schools, we can only hope both the Department of Homeland Security and TikTok are correct so students can stay safe throughout the day.

TikTok is a platform with an abundance of content, with thousands of new clips uploaded each day. The app’s popularity means that many creators are able to establish a core following that regularly tunes in to see their new content.

For many of these creators, TikTok is simply a hobby, but thanks to Creator Next, that hobby can become a handy way to make some extra money on the side, or even become their main source of income.

Here’s everything you need to know about TikTok’s Creator Next program.

What is Creator Next on TikTok?

TikTok’s Creator Next program is a great initiative to help content creators monetize their content and take TikToking to the next level.

Members of the Creator Next program have access to a handful of unique tools that other users won’t be able to take advantage of. These include a Creator Fund that will reward creators for putting out content and a TikTok Creator Marketplace where brands and creators can collaborate. Other features include LIVE Gifts, Video Gifts, and Tips.

To get access to the TikTok Creator Next program, you’ll need to be 18 years old or above, meet the minimum follower count for your specific region, and have at least 1,000 video views in the past 30 days with at least three posts. You’ll also need to have good Community Guidelines standing on your account and not be a business account.

If you meet this criterion, then you can pursue TikTok’s Creator Next program and start making money for your content!

via Instagram

While some may say no publicity is bad publicity, we have to wonder if that’s true for this Twitch streamer. Known online as Fanfan, Fiona Fan is a twenty-one-year-old woman from Vancouver, Canada, who mostly goes live under the “Just Chatting” category on the platform.

While she normally just talks about her life or whatever news is happening on a given day, she recently decided to tackle a more divisive topic — obesity. In a clip that has now gone viral, Fanfan said:

 “When you go to a hotel, and they have a roped-off area for smoking, a dedicated smoking area, why don’t they f***ing have that for obese people? I know they don’t have that for heroin users, but why do we not shame people who are morbidly obese? It’s bad for them!”

It comes as no surprise that many people were furious at the comments. A post of the clip on /r/LiveStreamFail not only garnered over two-thousand-six-hundred comments but also became one of the most popular posts on the entirety of Reddit on Wednesday.

Several people suggested that Fanfan needed to be roped off in her own special area for the terrible take.

Several other users pointed out that fat-shaming has actually been linked to increased weight gain. Obesity expert Leslie Pristas discussed this during an interview with St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.

“Experiencing the shame and stress that comes with weight stigma can trigger biological processes that actually make you gain more weight. Which in turn puts you at-risk for experiencing more weight stigma,” Pristas said. “Shame leads to increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can stimulate appetite, and increase risk for depression and anxiety — both of which contribute to unhealthy eating habits.”

Fanfan did offer a response after the clip gained notoriety online, but it didn’t defuse the situation as she seemed determined to defend her previous comments.

“The whole thing that I was saying was that we should not be glorifying people who are morbidly obese, which makes sense, doesn’t it? We should not be seeing someone who has health problems because they ate themselves until obese and call them brave. I stand by it.”

We’ll just have to wait and see if this affects Fanfan’s Twitch following after she’s generated so much controversy online.

Photo via TikTok Live Studio

TikTok has become the go-to app for the world’s youth, joining social media sites like Instagram and Twitter at the top of the globe’s most downloaded applications. Capitalizing on its massive popularity, the company that owns TikTok⏤ByteDance⏤is branching out after recently launching its own streaming software called TikTok Live Studio.

The software’s launch wasn’t widely publicized, instead quietly appearing as an option for users of the app. Its launch was announced by several prominent Twitter users including Miguel Lozada, the senior partnerships manager at consumer technology products brand Elgato, and Zach Bussey, the owner of Creator Hype.

Bussey announced the news in a straightforward tweet on Dec. 15.

“Tiktok has quietly launched its own streaming software called TikTok Live Studio,” he wrote, before expanding into a description of the software’s current capabilities. “It’s super basic in its current state. Has both Landscape and Portrait Scenes. Sources include Game Capture, Mobile Capture, Video Capture, Program Capture, and some text/images. No browser sources, or alerts. Emojis are limited to the stock ones.”

Lozada’s tweet was similarly straightforward. Instead of sharing screenshots of the app’s included features, however, he shared images of the setup process. This included an image of his Xbox home page, which he was able to stream using TikTok Live Studio. His images also showed some of the adjustments users can make to their stream, like enhancing the video and audio quality.

The TikTok Live Studio website welcomes users to “the LIVE studio,” where they can “easily create content and share magical moments with the streaming software designed specifically for the TikTok LIVE experience.”

TikTok Live Studio looks like it will function largely like any other streaming software, allowing viewers to interact with streamers in real time, share emojis and reactions to in-stream moments, and—importantly—allow users to share their favorite clips directly to TikTok.

The software appears to currently be in its very earliest, and most rudimentary, stages. If it gathers the kind of momentum it could, as a cousin to one of the world’s fastest-growing apps, TikTok Live Studio could be the new streaming software to beat.

It’s sometimes hard to keep up with all of the current viral trends on TikTok, with new dances, challenges, and various other oddities spawning on the platform almost daily. However, sometimes one goes so viral that absolutely everyone knows about it, and people begin to wonder where exactly it came from.

The “Go Little Rockstar” trend, as many have called it, is one of those cases. The incredibly wholesome trend has people using a particular sound based on a song by indie band SALES called “Pope Is a Rockstar” to help celebrate achievements of many kinds.

One portion of the song features the lyrics “Pope is a rockstar,” which people mishear enough to inspire the name of the trend as well as the tone of the videos it inspires.

Most of the videos are very wholesome, tending to feature either younger athletes or people, in general, doing amazing things, cute animals performing fantastic feats, or even just memorializing lost loved ones. The “little” part of the misheard lyrics tends to drive the theme of the videos for many people.

With no actual formatting requirements of any kind for the trend, minus including the song in the video, of course, it’s incredibly easy for a ton of people to both create and watch the videos based on it.

It has to be funny to have a song go viral for people quoting the wrong lyrics, but SALES doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, they haven’t commented on the situation at all despite having an official TikTok channel of their own. Still, we doubt any band would mind TikTok users giving them tons of recognition through literally millions of views, so more people than ever know their song.

For over a decade, green screens have played an integral role in producing some of the best CGI content for many of our favorite blockbuster films. The method was primarily used by filmmakers to superimpose a photo or video onto the background of another film or video and usually involved a large green sheet that made it easy to digitally remove color in post-production and add whatever image or video needed to be there in its place.

Over the years, this setup has become so common that most social media creators have been able to replicate their own “green screen effect,” albeit on a much smaller scale. It’s become such a normal part of society that the process has even gone digital, allowing you to hide the background in meetings or just use the technology to create a fun video on your very own laptop.

Now TikTok has taken these concepts and added a little spice for a new effect that allows creators to remain on screen while showing the audience an image in the background of the video. Naturally, as it is with most effects on TikTok, creators are in love with the new filter and have already found several ways to turn it into a viral trend.

Currently one of TikTok’s most popular effects, “the green screen” allows users to project an image of themselves over a background that they can select from their camera roll. The app also recently introduced the “moving green screen” effect, which allows users to film a new video over a different video from their camera roll, with the background clip only being revealed as a small square that moves around the screen.

So far, the new filter has prompted many creators using the effect to layer two different images of themselves⏤one that’s happy with one that’s sad⏤for an interesting green screen effect that is almost music-video worthy. Suffice it to say, the new trend has taken off on TikTok and become a viral phenomenon that has helped numerous creators attain millions of views.

How to use the “moving green screen” effect

If you’re an aspiring creator looking to join in on the new trend, the process is pretty easy to follow. According to Dexerto, all you have to do is follow these steps:

1. Go to your camera roll and record the video that you want playing inside the moving square. Many choose to lip-sync to popular TikTok sounds.

2. Trim the video to the exact length you want it to be and add a black and white filter.

3. Launch TikTok, go to the Discover tab, and search “moving green screen.”

4. Click the pink record button next to the filter.

5. When you are prompted to insert a video, select the video you just filmed from your camera roll.

6. Once you’ve inserted your video, click the record button to start filming your second video and the box will move around the screen automatically.

Simple, right? Of course, to get the full effect, you may need to experiment with different timings and make sure that you’re at the same distance from the camera in both videos to give it that X-ray effect. Once you master everything, the end results are usually pretty epic.

This is one of many TikTok trends that have gone viral in 2021, and you should check right back here for more information on any and all future ones.

It’s been a long while since we’ve had the Wizarding World on our screens. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald released way back in fall 2018, and the third film in the Harry Potter prequel saga has been delayed numerous times since then due to both creative rejigs and the pandemic. But the dry spell is finally coming to an end this spring with Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

Following the teaser that dropped last Friday, Warner Bros. has now shared the full trailer for Secrets, which reveals our first look at the return of Eddie Redmayne’s shy magizoologist Newt Scamander as he’s sent on another mission by Jude Law’s young Albus Dumbledore to defeat the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen, replacing Johnny Depp), who is amassing followers as he bids for world domination.

Set in the 1930s, exploring how the Wizarding World ended up involved in World War Two, Fantastic Beasts 3 is set to introduce the magical communities of Bhutan, Germany, Brazil, and China, after the first two films visited New York and Paris. As the title makes clear, the Dumbledore family will prove key to this film, following the last movie’s revelation that Ezra Miller’s Credence Barebone is actually Aurelius Dumbledore, a relative of Albus’.

Speaking of whom, Law’s Hogwarts professor promises to get a bigger chunk of the action this time around, though the Unbreakable Vow he made with Grindelwald in their passion-filled younger days still keeps him from facing the villain himself. Law’s portrayal of the fan-favorite character was one of the few widely praised aspects of Crimes, but hopefully this one will go down a lot better with critics and audiences alike.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is set for release on April 15 in the US.

Few would have woken up expecting Ben Shapiro’s younger sister to be going viral for comparing music legend Madonna to former first lady Nancy Reagan, but 2021 still has a few curve balls to throw at us. Abigail Shapiro, better known by her content creation alias Classically Abby online, took to Twitter on Friday to post a take so hot, it began trending.

Shapiro launched the Classically Abby brand back in 2019, which focused on makeup, fashion, and lifestyle videos. The channel gained notoriety in 2020 after the video “Why YOU Should Dress Modestly || Get the attention you deserve” began to make its rounds online. Despite garnering over 19,000 dislikes (back when the feature still existed), it managed to get over 1,541,000 views.

But today, when she attempted to suggest that living like Madonna was “trashy living” compared to Nancy Reagan’s “classic living,” the internet went wild over the take.

Twitter users absolutely dragged her in the way only they could, with most users making it perfectly clear that they would choose to be and live like Madonna.

Another user pointed out that Nancy Reagan had a bit of a saucy past herself. Kitty Kelly’s biography of the former first lady noted that she was “renowned in Hollywood for performing oral sex.”

Another user pointed out how Nancy Reagan didn’t speak up during the AIDs crisis back in the 1980s. In comparison, Madonna has raised millions for HIV/AIDs research during her career.

Science fiction author Charlie Stross didn’t hold back, sharing his thoughts on why Madonna easily wins when compared.

The fact that Classically Abby got Nancy Reagan to trend at all was enough to stun some.

So who wins in the epic battle of Madonna vs. Nancy Reagan? At least today, the internet has chosen Madonna, sorry, Classically Abby.

25-year-old TikTok influencer Alex Griswold shared in a resurfaced clip how a video he posted on the social media app saved his life. 

In 2019, the software developer first shared a clip of his wife Melinda Griswold massaging his shirtless back on TikTok. After viewing the video, two of his followers alerted Griswold about the two moles on his back and urged him to seek professional advice. 

Although the Florida native wasn’t previously alarmed by the large moles, he decided to take his fans’ advice and get it checked out. During his appointment, a dermatologist informed him that his viewers’ suspicions about his moles were correct. Griswold’s doctor also told him that those two unidentified individuals saved him from an early death because the moles were skin cancer. 

Griswold said in a viral update video shared on TikTok in 2020, “The doctor was like, ‘Whoever told you probably saved your life’ — so because of two kind strangers, I avoided skin cancer, and this is the perfect reminder that the world is a wonderful place.” The clip has since generated 1.5 million likes and has been shared over 20,000 times.

After the update, Griswold found out he had another mole during his six-month routine check-up and removed it. He shared the experience in, you guessed it, another TikTok video. Since then, he has been taking better care of his skin and overall health.

What are your thoughts on Alex Griswold’s diagnosis being discovered after posting a simple video on TikTok? Share your comments down below.