‘Roll your eyes if you want, I’m a star’ says nominee

For the people over the age of 30 and not chronically online, the likes of Asher Glean, Nicholas Flannery and Kyra-Mae Turner are probably total unknowns.

But, for those who spend more time than they’d like to admit scrolling through TikTok, these names are likely to be all over their For You Page.

They are just a few of the content creators who have been shortlisted for the first UK and Ireland TikTok Awards.

Across 12 categories, 72 creators, who have a combined follower count of over 101m, have been nominated and the winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Tuesday evening.

But, what’s the reason behind having an awards event for the people who make videos for social media platforms?

“There’s a lot that goes into content creation,” travel creators Jade Beaty and Ryan Losasso tell the BBC. “A 30 second video can take days, even weeks to produce.”

“Awards like this can inspire a whole new wave of people to pick up a phone and make content,” the pair explain.

Aly Meghani, one of the fashion and beauty nominees agrees, and says: “From the outside, content creation might seem easy, but there’s so much effort, time, and thought that goes into it.”

Meghani, who also has a fulltime job and does content creation in his spare time, says the awards “shed a light on our dedication and gives us the recognition we deserve”.

He adds that his content “helps break stereotypes” and his videos are more than just fashion inspiration, but instead “inspire people to truly be themselves”.

The power of TikTok is not to be underestimated – with 175 million monthly active TikTok users in Europe, videos on the app have contributed to some of this year’s most viral trends.

Trends such as very demure, very mindful have even made their way beyond the internet as Dictionary.com has named demure as its word of the year.

Oxford University instead went for brain rot as its word of the year, meaning the over-consumption of low quality content on social media, which translates to spending too much time mindlessly scrolling on apps like TikTok.

Psychologist and Oxford University Professor Andrew Przybylski says the word “describes our dissatisfaction with the online world and it’s a word that we can use to bundle our anxieties that we have around social media”.

Ayamé Ponder, one of the nominees for creator of the year, says she “gets both sides of the argument” but thinks influencers “get a bad rep”.

“They can roll their eyes all they want – I’m a star,” she tells the BBC.

Her 3.8m followers might know her best for comedy sketches, but she’s now using her platform “to give back”.

“I began to shift my purpose when I started seeing the injustices happening around the world,” she says.

Melissa McFarlane, head of operations for TikTok UK, Ireland & Nordics, says the awards celebrate everything from “science experts shining a light on STEM subjects, to literature lovers sharing their favourite book recommendations”.

“When you take a step back and think about the impact TikTok communities are having on reading, on the way we cook, even on the way we learn, it really is significant and deserves to be recognised; especially when most creators are just creative individuals with a passion,” she adds. “Their contribution goes well beyond just ‘influence.'”

The UK awards are one of 20 happening globally this year and each award celebrates people in various categories including food, music, entertainment, beauty and fitness.

While there are the nominees who create the usual get ready with me content or day in the life pieces, there are also those that have carved out a particular niche that shows how they’re “changing the industry”, according to Meghani.

Some of the nominees with perhaps the most niche content include:

• yorkshire.fossils – a page with 72m likes that says what it does on the tin and shows videos of fossils
• thep00lguy – with 15m followers, the creator makes satisfying ASMR videos of him cleaning swimming pools
• Dr Amy Boyington – the historian runs a page dedicated to offering insights into historical events