Remember what the Canadian theorist of the Marshall McLuhan media said: “The real message is the medium.” What must be understood by that is that the message is not a Simple content which would be disseminated indiscriminately by one type of media or another, but that on the contrary its very nature is deeply influenced by the ergonomics of the support via which it is conveyed. This somewhat generic idea, of which it is not necessarily easy to grasp the concrete meaning, finds, in the meeting between the challenges of images of the war in Ukraine and the visual culture of the Tiktok media, a edifying illustration.
Mobile application of video sharing launched in 2016 by the Chinese company bytedance, Tiktok was a dazzling success by offering the possibility of carrying out and disseminating free small viral clips of a few seconds where users film, generally in Dancing, on the music of their choice. For teenagers, who particularly appreciate it, this social network has made it possible to transform a more or less monotonous daily into a vitamin musical, a sort of the La Land Discount.
When the war in Ukraine suddenly came to shake the relative tranquility of the European continent, because the combatants are most often young, Tiktok logically became, with other platforms, the fighting box of the fighting. Rafalant soldiers in the direction of an invisible enemy, tankists feverishly maneuvering in their metal shell, missiles striving the sky of one does not know what province. Since the message is the medium, many of these snowfields from the Tiktokisal war have been accompanied by an unprecedented sound background. This is how Fortunate Son, from the Creedence Clearwater Revival group, came to accompany the rocket shooting of an ambushed Ukrainian fighter, giving the scene of False War War Airs.
tragic and light
Even more incongruous: under the keyword #dancingsoldiers appeared multiple videos where one can admire the choreographies of soldiers on the battlefield, in trellis and in arms, the shit rifle sometimes wearing ostensibly between the thighs, like a virile appendix transformed into a metronome. Alex Hook of his nickname, Ukrainian commando with lagoon blue eyes, has become a real viral celebrity thanks to its dance steps , executed from the Donbass. As always with social networks, it is difficult to know if this fighter dad really exists or if he is a legend built from scratch.
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