The TikTok-Tokyo Olympics: how athletes like Tom Daley and Liu Shiwen became social media influencers at a Games with no fans
- With spectators banned and athletes confined to the Olympic Village, apps like TikTok and Douyin are helping sport stars connect with the outside world
- Popular posts show Australia’s Sam Fricker diving into the cafeteria and Tilly Kearns debunking ‘anti-sex’ beds, trick shots from China’s table tennis coach Liu Guoliang and an outpouring of support for US gymnast Simone Biles
Little more than a week later and his already sizeable following had almost doubled thanks to the photogenic 19-year-old’s posting of videos in which he trains, talks to fans and chomps on chocolates in the athletes’ village cafeteria. And Fricker’s big moment – he competes in the men’s 10m platform on Friday – is still to come.
Likewise proving a hit online is Fricker’s fellow Australian Tilly Kearns, a water polo player who has been sharing videos on TikTok and Instagram about the food on offer and the infamous cardboard beds that some social media users have branded as “anti-sex” (a theory Kearns herself debunks). One of Kearns’ videos, showing the athletes’ dining hall, has already attracted 10 million views.
While some of the action has been on Instagram, where British diver Tom Daley has been posting his practice dives and podium selfies after his victory in the synchronised 10m event, the gold medal for influencing arguably belongs to TikTok and its Chinese market version Douyin. On both platforms Olympians including Daley have been gaining millions of views and likes per video – a level of exposure unimaginable even as recently as the 2016 Games in Rio.
The apps, owned by ByteDance, exploded in popularity worldwide in 2020, driven by millions of users sharing their experiences of living in isolation during extended coronavirus lockdowns.