TikTok, iPhone: all you need to escape Mumbai’s slums – for 15 seconds
- The Chinese-developed video-sharing app has more than 200 million monthly users in India, despite being heavily censored
- Among its biggest fans are young, impoverished Muslims to whom fame, not fortune, is the most valuable currency
Chastened by his hero’s experience, Khan does not dare make political content. The one time he tried, his account was frozen for a week, so he sticks to making 15-second clips that he calls “sad videos” – lip-synching to heartbreaking songs – that he believes is his niche. “Everyone is going through a break-up these days,” says the 18-year-old with a grin.
Like many of TikTok’s Indian users, Khan comes from a humble background – he lives in the Gharib Nawaz slums of Mumbai with his parents and two siblings. His father works as a driver and saves money to give his children an education. But Khan – who bought an iPhone to make “slow-motion videos” after working 14 hours a day as a part-time sales boy during event promotions – keeps busy beyond school.
He makes two to three videos a day at one of the popular TikTok chowks, or junctions, across Mumbai – places in the by-lanes of Byculla, Wadala and other neighbourhoods where hordes of TikTok-using teens gather every evening to watch videos and create fresh content. Khan joins them after school, then goes home to brainstorm the next day’s content.
In a busy Mumbai TikTok junction, swarming with teens, Ayan Sheikh, 18, greets Khan with a question. “How many?” he asks with a smirk.