Meet The Collectives Carving Out Space For POC And LGBTQ+ Creators On TikTok
Dan Muthama has built a brand on pointing out abnormal human tendencies. The 21-year-old has amassed a following exceeding 1.4 million on TikTok, the video app best known for short-form lip sync performances and viral pranks, where he’s recognized by the username
@strawhatdan. One of his most popular videos, with upwards of 10.7 million views, shows him discreetly wiping the dirt off someone else’s AirPods; in another, he mimics the contorted movements our bodies make once we step into a hot shower. His comedic talents have earned him representation by influencer organization Viral Country and sponsorships with brands, like the fitness clothing label Gymshark. Although in back of using TikTok to extend his personalized platform, Muthama hopes to carve out space for others like him, social media creators of color, and he is doing so with the help of an emerging collective: the University of Diversity.
As soon as Muthama was approached in December by founder Hadiya Harris, or
@wowhadiya on the app, to join the University of Diversity, a 30-member TikTok collective dedicated to ideals of inclusivity and positive representation across spectrums of race, gender, and sexuality, he jumped at the possibility. The order is united by a regular goal: “To have a bigger platform for each person, and to promote people of color to a bigger platform where they can be seen,” Muthama told MTV News. And so they mean organization, with plans to trademark their name, construct a website, drop merchandise, and meet up in Los Angeles to collaborate in person. The latter underscores why the collective exists in the initial place: By creating content with each other, members of the categorize cross-pollinate their crowds, attracting more attention to their individual accounts.
According to Muthama, the University of Diversity was modeled soon after Hype Home, a
21-member TikTok collective that perform with each other in a luxe, Spanish-style Los Angeles mansion for which the order is named. Hype House received immediate fanfare for its roster of well-known social media stars, including founders Thomas Petrou, 21, and Chase Hudson, 17, as well as sisters Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, who are 15 and 18 respectively. The crew frequently obtains in the home’s palatial washroom, or atop one of its sprawling Shakespearean balconies, for a coordinated routine or to take part in a viral challenge. In January, the entirety of Hype Home signed with the talent corporation
WME, and this success is due in part to these collaborative videos and crossovers. Take Charli, whose dance videos have become viral hits themselves, currently has 21.1 million followers on the app, and her repeated relationship teases with rumored boyfriend Hudson, with 11.3 million followers of his own, keep fans on their toes and encourage engagement. Four members are full time home residents.
And though the mansion's swanky pool and lavish exteriors may seem extraordinary, the Hype Home model is nothing we haven’t seen before. The 02L mansion, Clout Home, and Jake Paul’s Team 10 are all early examples of YouTube collab houses that have housed social media celebrities in a task to prepare higher excellent content at a faster rate, not unlike
hacker houses in Silicon Valley. In a 2017 interview with Forbes, Paul explained
Team 10’s purpose. “It’s really an incubator for social media talent,” he mentioned. “We take people who have a lot of potential and teach them how to create content, produce it, etc. Then we move them into a home and we all collaborate.” The brainchild of Petrou, who started working with Team 10 in 2017 to help its creators
develop, create, and edit content, Hype House’s core mission is the same. And while the project has proved exhilarating for several fans — its meteoric rise is evidenced in the 6.9 million followers on their sort account, which launched in December — it has been met with mixed reactions more broadly, with several viewers pointing out the lack of diversity among its members.
“Everyone is sort of the same,” Muthama mentioned, noting that he felt “intimidated” whenever watching Hype Residence videos. “Why not have another creator who can bring something useful to the table?” In response, more groups of TikTokers have emerged, several of which foster intentional communities within viral collectives of their own, utilizing Hype House’s collaborative framework to open possibilities for creators of color and other marginalized users. Muthama continued: “That was the reason why University of Diversity was created. Every sort you visualize coming up, I think it’s all because of Hype Home MTV News reached out to Hype Home for comment yet did not receive a response by publication.
additionally to the University of Diversity, there’s Melanin Mansion, which is serious about creators of color and launched in December by 16-year-old
Aiesys Mial. There’s also Cabin 6, a LGBTQ+ collective that “started because the Pence summer camp joke,” according to 21-year-old member Brenley Carmine. The viral meme for which the order is named started when social media users began picturing what life could be like for LGBTQ+ youth if Vice President Mike Pence — who’s come under fire for his support of
anti-LGBTQ+ policies — were to take over as president of the United States, imagining that world as an eerie summer camp. In their first TikTok posts as a crowd, Cabin 6 parodied that there could be a yellow school bus driven by Pence himself.
“It never gets old,” Carmine mentioned of the joke. While those posts are the ones that have garnered the most attention — the “
Cabin 6 Lineup” video has been viewed over 430,000 times — the collective is currently brainstorming ways to use that visibility to benefit their community. “How can we take this, all summer camp jokes aside, and make it something to define us in a different way?” Carmine asked. Furthermore to testing out dance videos and other types of content, Cabin 6 members keep their Instagram DMs open to supply support to LGBTQ+ youth exploring their gender and sexual identities. “If you don’t have anyone converse with, there really are 20 of us waiting,” Carmine said.
Meanwhile, the University of Diversity has been diligently working to elevate their content: In a
recent TikTok post, the categorize flexed their editing skills by seamlessly passing objects to each other despite being in different locations. “We accept all kinds of people, and we help each other grow,” Muthama mentioned. “We ensure not to change anyone’s content, yet just to uplift and make them a higher class of creator than before.” He admits that growth can be hard not just because all 30 members are scattered across the nation, yet because creators of color often feel they aren’t recommended as several paid brand deals as white influencers. And since TikTok currently doesn’t pay out users for their content, securing those collaborations key is a prominent part of earn cash, which permits for creators to buy better tools and, in turn, make stronger videos.
“As a [POC] creator, you feel like you’re sort of excluded from opportunities,” Muthama mentioned. “I think having people like [the University of Diversity] or the Melanin Mansion, it will support us uplift each other as well as reach out to brands.” Muthama relates the shortage of monetizable opportunities to the lack of non-white creators featured on TikTok’s For You page, the feed where content is algorithmically recommended to users. “There are barely any people of color. You sort of visualize a lot of similar things, like a white creator who’s popular, and they’re sort of doing the same thing, lip-synching to a song.” This isn’t the initial time the For You page has sparked concern: In December, netzpolitik.Org announced that the app’s moderators had
been censoring posts from those they identified as disabled, fat, or LGBTQ+.
According to TikTok Director of Creator Community Kudzi Chikumbu: “Videos surface to a user’s For You feed based on things like video excellent and viewer engagement.” That insinuates that a new user’s feed will most likely be filled with content coming out of Hype Home and other verified users simply because they are the most popular on the platform. “As users engage more with content that is relevant, appealing and interesting to them, the For You feed will automatically show them more of the dialogue that resonates with them,” Chikumbu continued. For newer users, joining forces with a collective might be the key to breaking into a space otherwise dominated by the most popular accounts, a notion echoed my Muthama: “Having a platform where you have big engagement and folks are really supporting your back, I feel like that’s really important.”
But representation isn’t just crucial for the creators within these collectives; it’s key for all of TikTok’s 800 million mobile
monthly users worldwide, with 60 percent of users in the U.S. Falling between the ages of 16–24. “It’s essential for people who are attempting discover who they are to be able to see it on their screen,” Carmine said, noting that it was a kiss between two male characters on
Glee that showed him it's OK to be himself. However for the app’s largely young audience, seeing groups like Cabin 6 on social media is the 2020 equivalent. “I think young people need those positive role models,” Carmine added, and TikTok gives him the platform to be one. “I feel the need to use my voice because I know what it seemed like to not be able to.”
Nonetheless, Muthama and Carmine both recognize TikTok’s efforts to foster a diverse community (among its initiatives are partnerships with GLAAD and the World Economic Forum) and feel grateful for the platform it provides. “It sort of just feels like going to a Pride festival, yet every day,” Carmine mentioned. “When I go to a Pride Festival, all those years that I couldn’t talk about this, here I am. I don’t care! If I was a young kid and I saw that all of the time, I would feel a little bit more regular and I would feel like it’s OK to open the door.”
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