Tucked within Sydney’s grand ICC Theatre on Wednesday night, a major award show was in full swing. Excited attendees posed in front of brand activations, confetti rained down, and celebrities such as Cody Simpson and Osher Gunsberg announced the winners, determined by a staggering 6.4 million public votes.
You’d be forgiven for thinking this was the Logies or ARIAs. But no, it was the TikTok Awards, a five-year-old initiative to recognise people who, if you’re over the age of 35, are probably unrecognisable.
The Australian/New Zealand TikTok Awards may have only begun five years ago, but it’s no small fish. Last year, it even attracted global pop star JoJo Siwa.Credit: Jack Bennett
Labelled ‘the Oscars of social media’ by some, the awards demonstrate how much the video platform offers beyond inexplicably changing the meaning of the words like “demure” and normalising snack food for dinner. It celebrates the best emerging talent in areas including comedy, beauty and fashion, music, sports and cooking.
Last year, the Australian ceremony (which also honours New Zealand creators) attracted over 2.2 million viewers across TikTok Live, Binge, FOX8 and Kayo Sports. US singer JoJo Siwa even performed onstage, and airguns blasted T-shirts into the crowd.
Although the audience tracking systems are very different, this year’s Logies had a national average audience of 1.29 million viewers and the ARIAs had 212,000.
Figures on the number of people voting for those awards are not known, but that is another metric that is shooting up for the TikTok awards. This year, the number of public votes increased by 3 million.
And for the creators, the awards really do matter.
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Since winning creator of the year (the biggest award of the night) in 2022, Kat Clark has worked with a growing number of exclusive brands, collaborated with other creators and moved to the US to expand her career.
“Being a teen mum and high school drop-out, I didn’t have much going for me. So, when I won, it didn’t feel real,” says Clark, who predominantly posts family lifestyle vlogs.
“I listened to a lot of negative people in my life saying TikTok isn’t a real job and your 15 minutes of fame will be over soon. But winning that award made me realise I had such an incredible opportunity … The only person who didn’t believe in me was me, so that changed real quick.”
Bridey Drake was crowned top creator last year for her comedic videos about the realities of adulthood. The 24-year-old says the win saw her TikTok followers increase from just over 3 million to nearly 4 million. All sorts of collaborative opportunities opened up, she says, including the upcoming documentary series about her life, Pure Average.
Bridey Drake says winning the biggest award of the night last year almost immediately changed her career.Credit: Jack Bennett
And yet, many Australians probably haven’t heard of the TikTok Awards, let alone the creators it celebrates. So, let’s meet some of the people who snatched trophies this year.
Creator of the Year
When Ilai Havea Siaufusi O’Auhangame Matangi began creating funny videos with his children during the COVID-19 lockdowns, he had no clue he’d eventually be handed the country’s biggest social media award – the first Pasifika creator to do so.
“It was all just for entertainment. I had no intentions to get to this level,” says Matangi, who won best comedy creator last year. “The community I built off my content is amazing and winning this [award] says more about them than me, as they voted for me.”
Matangi is part of a large cohort producing content with their families. Some of his most popular videos have featured him trying to make his children flinch while eating and allowing his daughter to control the weekly groceries.
Ironically, his children (all of whom are under the age of 16) will not be able to independently access the content in which they appear when the government’s social media ban comes into effect.
But no matter who can access his videos or how many followers he accrues, Matangi says he will always be his own biggest fan. “If I make a video and really enjoy it, it’s going up on my page. I don’t necessarily get caught up on the content I post. Once it’s posted, I move onto the next.”
Entertainment Creator of the Year
A turning point for Theo Shakes, who reenacts stereotypical television and film tropes, was when he performed as a Sherlock Holmes-type character on TikTok.
“A composer said, ‘I’ll compose music for you,’ and his name was Gabriel Rojas – shout out from all the way in America. He 1764744226 composes my TikToks every now and then,” Shakes says. “We’ve created this beautiful, fruitful collaboration across borders with music and film.”
Since his first TikTok, Shakes says he has learnt that “humour is king, relatability is prince and creativity is queen” – but his main takeaway is the platform’s ability to connect.
“It’s told the stories of people who are Indigenous, for people who are dancers, for people who are painters,” he says. “We’ve seen new talent come to the table. We’ve seen a wave of generational storytelling at its peak and at its beginning.”
Comedy Creator of the Year
Liam Dowling and Ben Christopher hit the jackpot when they recognised the power of nostalgia. Their relatable videos, which see the pair reenact funny childhood memories (like accidentally making your sibling cry), became so popular they’ve been able to turn content creation into full-time jobs.
“So many Aussies can relate to a similar upbringing with typical Aussie parents and the funny memories we can all look back on and laugh,” Dowling says. “This award really makes us happy knowing we’re reaching our target audience and providing them something of value and something to laugh at and forget about serious things for a bit.”
They’ve long wanted to write and act in their own TV shows and films, Dowling says, so they hope winning a TikTok Award will encourage those within the entertainment industries to take them more seriously.
Music Artist of the Year
Emerging musicians such as Savali now flock to TikTok, where they can engage with fans and gain viral exposure (no matter where they’ve come from or what niche they operate within) without the backing of a traditional record label.
Food Creator of the Year
Andy Hearnden first put on an apron at the age of three. He left school in Year 10, trained to become a chef, cooked in restaurants across Auckland, London, Singapore and Melbourne, and then began his TikTok journey.
“I love cooking for friends and family, and they’d always ask for cooking tips. So, I started making cooking videos that focused on inspiring people to cook more at home,” he says. “It was just me cooking, shooting, editing and posting. Now I’m at 6 million followers on TikTok, posting almost every day and have a great team around me.”
Content creation has been his full-time job for over two years – and also a full-time job for the eight other people in his team.
“TikTok has definitely given creators of all industries an easier level of entry and maybe more confidence to share their art and find global audiences,” Hearnden says.
High-Quality Content Creator of the Year
Food content has always performed well on TikTok, but add some high-definition abs to the mix, and you have an award-winner. Melbourne-based chef Anthony Randello-Jahn posts what can only be described as aesthetic food porn, replete with shirtless kneading, oozing donuts and even some sexy dishwashing.
His sultry sourdough videos saw his TikTok fame truly take off, but he says he has since transitioned into a more elevated space.
“Working with large brands this year changed the way people viewed my content,” Randello-Jahn says. “It showed that high-end, highly produced dessert videos can still feel fun, authentic and very me. All of it made me realise that trusting my creativity instead of chasing trends is always the right move … Showing chaos, personality and passion always wins.”
Australian content creators arguably have to work even harder to make it big on the platform, he adds, since larger-scale opportunities tend to come from overseas where time zones differ, and there are generally fewer creators with whom to collaborate.
“You end up building everything yourself,” Randello-Jahn says. “But those challenges have pushed me to level up every part of my craft, from filming and editing to running businesses and telling stories.”
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