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From the writing center at the university of wisconsin-madison.

#essayhack: What TikTok can Teach Writing Centers about Student Perceptions of College Writing

By Holly Berkowitz, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

There is a widespread perception that TikTok, the popular video-sharing social media platform, is primarily a tool of distraction where one mindlessly scrolls through bite-sized bits of content. However, due to the viewer’s ability to engage with short-form video content, it is undeniable that TikTok is also a platform from which users gain information; whether this means following a viral dance tutorial or learning how to fold a fitted sheet, TikTok houses millions of videos that serve as instructional tutorials that provides tips or how-tos for its over one billion active users. 

That TikTok might be considered a learning tool also has implications for educational contexts. Recent research has revealed that watching or even creating TikToks in classrooms can aid learning objectives, particularly relating to language acquisition or narrative writing skills. In this post, I discuss  the conventions of and consequences for TikToks that discuss college writing. Because of the popularity of videos that spotlight “how-tos” or “day in the life” style content, looking at essay or college writing TikTok can be a helpful tool for understanding some larger trends and student perceptions of writing. Due to the instructional nature of TikToks and the ways that students might be using the app for advice, these videos can be viewed as parallel or ancillary to the advice that a Writing Center tutor might provide.

A search for common hashtags including the words “essay,” “college writing,” or “essay writing hack” yields hundreds of videos that pertain to writing at the college level. Although there is a large variety in content due to the sheer amount of content, this post focuses on two genres of videos as they represent a large portion of what is shared: first, videos that provide tips or how-tos for certain AI tools or assignment genres and second, videos that invite the viewer to accompany the creator as they write a paper under a deadline. Shared themes include attempts to establish peer connections and comfort viewers who procrastinate while writing, a focus on writing speed and concrete deliverables (page count, word limit, or hours to write), and an emphasis on digital tools or AI software (especially that which is marked as “not cheating”). Not only does a closer examination into these videos help us meet writers where they are more precisely, but it also draws writing center workers’ attention to lesser known digital tools or “hacks” that students are using for their assignments.

“How to write” Videos

Videos in the “how to” style are instructional and advice-dispensing in tone. Often, the creator utilizes a digital writing aid or provides a set of writing tips or steps to follow. Whether these videos spotlight assistive technologies that use AI, helpful websites, or suggestions for specific forms of writing, they often position writing as a roadblock or adversary. Videos of this nature attempt to reach viewers by promising to make writing easier, more approachable, or just faster when working under a tight deadline; they almost always assume the writer in question has left their writing task to the last possible moment. It’s not surprising then that the most widely shared examples of this form of content are videos with titles like “How to speed-write long papers” or “How to make any essay longer” (this one has 32 million views). It is evident that this type of content attempts to target students who suffer from writing-related anxiety or who tend to procrastinate while writing.

Sharing “hacks” online is a common practice that manifests in many corners of TikTok where content creators demonstrate an easier or more efficient way of achieving a task (such as loading a dishwasher) or obtaining a result (such as finding affordable airline tickets). The same principle applies to #essay TikTok, where writing advice is often framed as a “hack” for writing faster papers, longer papers, or papers more likely to result in an A. This content uses a familiar titling convention: How to write X (where X might be a specific genre like a literature review, or just an amount of pages or words); How to write X in X amount of time; and How to write X using this software or AI program. The amount of time is always tantalizingly brief, as two examples—“How to write a 5 page essay in 2 mins” and “How to write an essay in five minutes!! NO PLAGIARISM!!”—attest to. While some of these are silly or no longer useful methods of getting around assignment parameters, they introduce viewers to helpful research and writing aids and sometimes even spotlight Writing Center best practices. For instance, a video by creator @kaylacp called “Research Paper Hack” shows viewers how to use a program called PowerNotes to organize and code sources; a video by @patches has almost seven million views and demonstrates using an AI bot to both grade her paper and provide substantive feedback. Taken as a whole, this subsect of TikTok underscores that there is a ready audience for content that purports to assist writers in meeting the deliverables of a writing assignment using a path of least resistance.

Similarly, TikTok contains myriad videos that position the creator as a sort of expert in college writing and dispense tips for improving academic writing and style. These videos are often created by upperclassmen who claim to frequently receive As on essays and tend to use persuasive language in the style of an infomercial, such as “How to write a college paper like a pro,” “How to write research papers more efficiently in 5 easy steps!” or “College students, if you’re not using this feature, you’re wasting your time.” The focus in these videos is even more explicit than those mentioned above, as college students are addressed in the titles and captions directly. This is significant  because it prompts users to engage with this content as they might with a Writing Center tutor or tutoring more generally. These videos are sites where students are learning how to write more efficiently but also learning how their college peers view and treat the writing process. 

The “how to write” videos share several common themes, most prevalent of which is an emphasis on concrete deliverables—you will be able to produce this many pages in this many minutes. They also share a tendency to introduce or spotlight different digital tools and assistive technologies that make writing more expedient; although several videos reference or demonstrate how to use ChatGPT or OpenAI, most creators attempt to show viewers less widely discussed platforms and programs. As parallel forms of writing instruction, these how-tos tend to focus on quantity over quality and writing-as-product. However, they also showcase ways that AI can be helpful and generative for writers at all stages. Most notably they direct our attention to the fact that student writers consistently encounter writing- and essay- related content while scrolling TikTok.

Write “with me” Videos

Just as the how-to style videos target writers who view writing negatively and may have a habit of procrastinating writing assignments, write “with me” videos invite the viewer to join the creator as they work. These videos almost always include a variation of the phrase— “Write a 5- page case analysis w/ me” or “pull an all nighter with me while I write a 10- page essay.” One of the functions of this convention is to establish a peer-to-peer connection with the viewer, as they are brought along while the creator writes, experiences writer’s block, takes breaks, but ultimately completes their assignment in time. Similarly to the videos discussed above, these “with me” videos also center on writing under a deadline and thus emphasize the more concrete deliverables of their assignments. As such, the writing process is often made less visible in favor of frequent cuts and timestamps that show the progression toward a page or word count goal.

One of the most common effects of “with me” videos is to assure the viewer that procrastinating writing is part and parcel of the college experience. As the content creators grapple with and accept their own writing anxieties or deferring habits, they demonstrate for the viewer that it is possible to be both someone who struggles with writing and someone who can make progress on their papers. In this way, these videos suggest to students that they are not alone in their experiences; not only do other college students feel overwhelmed with writing or leave their papers until the day before they are due, but you can join a fellow student as they tackle the essay writing process. One popular video by @mercuryskid with over 6 million views follows them working on a 6000 word essay for which they have received several extensions, and although they don’t finish by the end of the video, their openness about the struggles they experience while writing may explain its appeal. 

Indeed, in several videos of this kind the creator centers their procrastination as a means of inviting the viewer in; often the video will include the word in the title, such as “write 2 essays due at 11:59 tonight with me because I am a chronic procrastinator” or “write the literature essay i procrastinated with me.” Because of this, establishing a peer connection with the hypothetical viewer is paramount; @itskamazing’s video in which she writes a five page paper in three hours ends with her telling the viewer, “If you’re in college, you’re doing great. Let’s just knock this semester out.” One video titled “Writing essays doesn’t need to be stressful” shows a college-aged creator explaining what tactics she uses for outlining and annotating research to make sure she feels prepared when she begins to write in earnest. Throughout, she directly hails the viewer as “you” and attempts to cultivate a sense of familiarity with the person on the other side of the screen; in some moments her advice feels like listening in on a one-sided Writing Center session.

A second aspect of these “with me” videos is an intense focus on the specifics of a writing task. The titles of these videos usually follow a formula that invites the viewer with the writer as they write X amount in X time, paralleling the structure of how-to-write videos. The emphasis here, due to the last-minute nature of the writing contexts, is always on speed: “write a 2000- word essay with me in 4.5 hours” or “Join me as I write a 10- page essay that is due at 11:59pm.” Since these videos often need to cover large swaths of time during which the creator is working, there are several jumps forward in time, sped up footage, and text stamps or zoom-ins that update the viewer on how many pages or words the writer has completed since the last update. Overall, this brand of content demonstrates how product-focused writers become when large amounts of writing are completed in a single setting. However, it also makes this experience seem more manageable to viewers, as we frequently see writers in videos take naps and breaks during these high-stakes writing sessions. Furthermore, although the writers complain and appear stressed throughout, these videos tend to close with the writer submitting their papers and celebrating their achievement.

Although these videos may send mixed messages to college students using TikTok who experience struggles with writing productivity, they can be helpful for viewers as they demonstrate the shared nature of these struggles and concerns. Despite the overarching emphasis on the finished product, the documentary-style of this content shows how writing can be a fraught process. For tutors or those removed from the experience of being in college, these videos also illuminate some of the reasons students procrastinate writing; we see creators juggling part-time jobs, other due dates, and family obligations. This genre of TikToks shows the power that social media platforms have due to the way they can amplify the shared experience of students.

To conclude, I gesture toward a few of the takeaways that #essay and #collegewriting TikTok might provide for those who work in Writing Centers, especially those who frequently encounter students who struggle with procrastination. First, because TikTok is a video-sharing platform, the content often shows a mixture of writing process and product. Despite a heavy emphasis in these videos on the finished product that a writer turns in to be graded, several videos necessarily also reveal the steps that go into writing, even marathon sessions the night before a paper is due. We primarily see forward progress but we also see false starts and deletions; we mostly see the writer once they have completed pre-writing tasks but we also see analyzing a prompt, outlining, and brainstorming. Additionally, this genre of TikTok is instructive in that it shows how often students wait until before a paper is due to begin and just how many writers are working solely to meet a deadline or deliverable. While as Writing Center workers we cannot do much to shift this mindset, we can make a more considerable effort to focus on time management and executive functioning skills in our sessions. Separating the essay writing process into manageable chunks or steps appears to be a skill that college students are already seeking to develop independently when they engage on social media, and Writing Centers are equipped to help students refine these habits. Finally, it is worth considering the potential for university Writing Center TikTok accounts. A brief survey of videos created by Writing Center staff reveals that they draw on similar themes and tend to emphasize product and deliverables—for example, a video titled “a passing essay grade” that shows someone going into the center and receiving an A+ on a paper. Instead, these accounts could create a space for Writing Centers to actively contribute to the discourse on college writing that currently occupies the app and create content that parallels a specific Writing Center or campus’s values.

Holly Berkowitz is the Coordinator of the Writing and Communication Center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She recently received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she also worked at the UW-Madison Writing Center. Although she does not post her own content, she is an avid consumer of TikTok videos.

Home / Guides / Writing Guides / Writing Tips / How to Make an Essay Longer the Smart Way

How to Make an Essay Longer the Smart Way

Meeting an essay’s required page or word count can sometimes be a struggle, especially if you’re juggling multiple papers or exams. In a pinch, students often rely on tricks like increasing margin size or making their font slightly bigger. Though these tricks do increase page length, there are easier (and smarter) ways to write a longer, high-quality essay. Making a paper meet minimum word or page counts doesn’t have to be an agonizing process—you can add length while also adding clarity and depth.

Here are 10 tips on how you can write a longer and a smarter essay, even if the deadline is fast approaching:

Tip #1: Look Back at Your Prompt/Rubric/etc.

If you’ve been provided a comprehensive prompt or rubric for an essay, read it, and read it again. Think about the following:

• Did you answer all of the questions in the prompt?
• Did you provide supporting evidence to back up whatever claims you made?
• Did you leave out any information that might increase the reader’s understanding of your argument?
• Did you meet all requirements (besides length) for the paper?

If the answer isn’t a decisive “yes” to every question on this list, go back and revise.

Tip #2: Go Back Through Your Introduction and Conclusion

Often times, ideas evolve while writing a paper. If the first thing you wrote was the introduction, go back and reread the first paragraph. You might decide that you left out key information that aids the reader in understanding your argument. When looking back on the conclusion, make sure you’ve both summarized the main points within the essay and provided your reader with a solution to consider. If you don’t feel you’ve done this, go back through and revise the paper.

Tip #3: Have Someone Proofread Your Essay

Even if you’re short on time ask a friend, sibling, or parent to read through your paper, specifically noting any points they find confusing. Then, go back and revise the parts that were unclear, adding in more information to provide readers with further clarity. You have a more comprehensive understanding of what you’re writing about than your reader, so having someone else look over your paper can be a helpful way to ensure that you haven’t missed any important details.

Tip #4: Use Quotations

Chances are, you have already used quotes in your paper. Quotations are a great way to enhance your argument while also driving up a paper’s word count, but don’t add quotes just for the sake of doing so. If you’re short on words, read through your source materials again to see if you’ve missed any valuable quotes. You can also do a little more research to see if there are any other sources you can add to provide the reader with more evidence toward your argument. Longer quotes aren’t necessarily better, but if you’re really in a bind, you might want to lengthen some of the quotes that are already included.

Tip #5: Review Your Outline

Did you make an outline to plan the essay when you first started? Go back through that initial outline and make sure you’ve hit all of your intended points. It’s possible that you’ve left out an important piece of your argument that would both increase page count and make for a better essay.

Tip #6: Include More Transitional Phrases

Graders often look for traditional words linking sentences to each other, like “therefore,” “even though”, and “on the other hand.” Read through your essay and make sure the sentences flow smoothly into each other. If they don’t, go back and add in transitional phrases like the ones listed above. Your writing will be easier to read, and you’ll get closer to the minimum page requirement in the process.

Tip #7: Read Your Paper Out Loud

This might sound like a silly tip, but when you read your paper out loud, you become increasingly aware of any grammatical or syntactical issues. When you rephrase sentences to fix these, you might end up increasing the paper length a bit. In the process of reading out loud, you also might realize that you didn’t include sufficient details within a particular paragraph. If that’s the case, go back in and add more to increase length.

Tip #8: Take a Break From Your Essay

You’ve probably been staring at your computer screen for hours, hoping words will magically pop into your head. Take a break. Eat a snack, go for a walk, or talk to a friend on the phone. You’ll come back to the essay with a fresh perspective after some time away, and you might have new ideas after you’ve had time away from your paper.

Tip #9: Ask Your Instructor for Help

Most teachers, teaching assistants, and professors are willing to look over papers for students before the final submission date. If there is still time, ask if you can make an appointment to go over your paper or head over to office hours. Your instructor might offer tips on how to better answer the prompt, and this in turn may also increase the word count of the paper.

Tip #10: Use multiple examples to back up your argument

If you’ve only used one source or anecdote to explain a given point, find a second source to provide additional evidence for the reader. This method will help drive up a paper’s word count while also providing further support for your argument.

Although hitting a minimum page count can sometimes be challenging, you can do it the smart way by increasing the information you provide to the reader—there’s no reason to resort to tricks like increasing line spacing or font size. If you’re really in a bind at the last minute, you might want to break up some of your paragraphs. This increases length while also making text more manageable for a reader. But after going through the tips on this list, your paper should be adequate in length without you having to even consider spacing.

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21 Helpful and Easy Tips to Make an Essay Longer

Bookman Old Style > Times New Roman.

When you're writing a school paper after researching and typing for what feels like ages, but you still haven't reached your teacher's required page count, it's normal to feel frustrated. Maybe you get a little creative and play Microsoft Word gymnastics with different fonts and spacing, or become super expressive with your descriptions. There's also a chance you missed something on the assignment rubric, or overlooked the opportunity to include more quotes from trusted sources. You might even be able to load up on a few more examples for your argument, easily boosting the word count with additional research. Still a couple pages behind the limit? Don't worry. Below, we have over 20 tips to help you hit that page requirement.

1. Make sure you included everything on the rubric. If you forgot a whole section focusing on the counter argument, that could be the reason why your paper is a couple pages shorter than needed.

2. Load up on transitional phrases. Your paper isn't long enough, therefore it may be necessary to add some transitional phrases because they take up space. On the other hand , this could make your paper really wordy, however , it may be necessary. See what I did there?

3. Spell out your numbers. There are four editorial styles — AP, APA, MLA, and Chicago. Each one has a different rule for spelling out numbers, which can work out in your favor. For instance, in APA, you write out all numbers under 10. So a one-character "7" becomes a five-character "seven." In MLA, you spell out all numbers at the beginning of a sentence, and all simple numbers (those that are one or two words). Make sure to check the assignment rubric to see what style your paper should be written in!

4. Ditch the contractions. Honestly, you probably should not even be using contractions in a formal essay, so if you are filling up your paper with "don't," "won't," and "can't," switch them out for "do not," "will not," and "cannot."

5. Use numerous examples. Make sure to do extensive research on your essay topic and come up with at least 2-3 examples for every argument presented. One example might seem like enough, but adding a couple more points improves your paper and boosts its word count.

6. Add quotes. Including quotes, whether they be from a book, news article, or trusted source, helps strengthen and validate the point you're making in a paper. But you can't just drop a quotation without context. Introducing, writing out, and properly unpacking a quote can add value — and length — to your essay.

7. Start getting really descriptive about everything. How illustrative can you get about the evolution of electricity, you ask? Well, the answer is: Very. The howling wind gushed passed Benjamin Franklin at 30 miles per hour on that cold, rainy night, pulling the string of his kite taught as it fought to stay in the sky and sent his grey hair flying up in the sky like silvery wisps.

8. Try to make your header longer. If possible, of course. Some teachers clearly state what information needs to be included in the header. But if there's no guideline, add what you can within reason — I'm not sure your teacher is going to appreciate your TikTok or Insta handle listed on the page.

9. Have someone proofread. Getting another pair of eyes to read your paper might reveal some areas in need of work. Maybe you need to elaborate a bit more on a certain argument, or include a quote to strengthen an example.

10. Revisit your introduction paragraph. Sometimes, an introduction is easiest to write after the paper has been written. Having already presented and thoroughly discussed the argument in the essay's body paragraphs, you have a more concrete understanding of what direction the paper takes. There might be some information or ideas you can add into the intro, to better set up the paper's points.

11. Make your spacing larger. Your teacher probably won't be able to tell the difference between double spacing and 2.5 spacing. *fingers crossed*

12 . While you're at it, expand the spacing between the characters. Yes, I'm talking between each and every letter.

13. Raise the font size from 12pt to 12.5pt. Nobody has to know!

14. Make all periods and commas 14pt. It sounds tedious, but simply command-f and search for the period, that way you can change all of them at once.

15. Put extra space around your (super long and bolded) title. It needs some space to shine and breathe, obvs.

16. Change the font. You can't get too crazy or else your teacher will call you out, so you stick with something super similar to Times New Roman, but slightly bigger, like Bookman Old Style. However some teachers specify a certain font in the paper's assignment requirements — in the case, don't try to switch things up.

17. Reverse outline. After you've finished penning your essay, read it through and write an outline on what you have written so far. This strategy can reveal some paragraphs in need of further development. If you notice one super long paragraph, try breaking the ideas down into separate paragraphs. This might bump the page count up a bit, and give you the opportunity to include a few more transition sentences.

18. Make your margins bigger. You have to be careful about the left and right margins, and the top can be tricky. But the bottom margin, you can practically make it as big as you want. And then you can...

19. Add a fancy footer with page numbers. Obviously (hopefully), your teacher will appreciate your attention to detail and presentation.

20. Add a header with the title of your paper to every single page. Just in case your teacher forgets what your paper is about. You only want to help.

21. Make a separate cover page. Technically, the rubric didn't say it couldn't count as page one.

When I'm not holed up in my room going on a completely unproductive Netflix binge or Tumblr stalking Timothée Chalomet, I'm searching for awesome celeb news stories that Seventeen readers will love!

Leah Campano is an Associate Editor at Seventeen, where she covers pop culture, entertainment news, health, and politics. On the weekends, you can probably find her watching marathons of vintage Real Housewives episodes or searching for New York City’s best almond croissants. 

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How to Make Your Essay Longer on TikTok

Are you looking for some check it out tips on how to make your essay longer on TikTok? These tips will make your essays longer and more interesting. Just remember that the length of your essay is a function of how well you structure your essay and how well you structure your paragraphs. Moreover, the more you write, the more people will read it. In order to keep your audience’s attention, you need to have a lot of content.

In addition to doing extensive research, you must have 2-3 examples for every go to these guys argument. Adding more examples will make your paper longer, so be sure to add examples. You can also include quotes to strengthen your arguments. You should introduce them with some context, so the audience can understand their meaning and take it seriously. Besides, unpacking the quotes will enhance their value directory and improve your paper. However, be sure to adhere to the teacher’s guidelines to avoid breaking any rules.

When it comes to writing an essay, students should always keep in mind that an essay that’s under the page limit will be penalized. This is because it won’t be able to meet the expectations of the teacher. So, it’s best to stay within the guidelines of your teacher. A good way to do this is by changing the font size or manipulating the spacing between lines. You should note that changing the font size will cause your essay to look cluttered.

A good way to make your essay longer on TikTok is to expand your content. You should expand find more the length of the content. This can be done by increasing the font size, adding a lengthy header, or manipulating the spacing between lines. Just be aware that breaking the guidelines site web will cost you your grade. Ensure you follow the guidelines for the font size, as this will help you to avoid any plagiarism.

Adding more examples to your essay can help you make it longer on TikTok. In addition to the number of examples, you should also consider using quotes Full Report to support your arguments. This will not only make your essay longer, but it will also boost its word count. By adding quotes to your essay, you can show your audience that you’ve read and understood what the quote says. It will also give you more ideas.

Adding quotes and examples to your essay are why not find out more two ways to make it longer. When writing a research paper, you should include at least two or three quotes for each argument you’ve made. This will boost the overall word count of your essay. By adding quotes, you can increase your essay’s length by up to five to ten percent. You can also add additional quotes and examples to your paper.

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The video essay boom

Hour-long YouTube videos are thriving in the TikTok era. Their popularity reflects our desire for more nuanced content online.

by Terry Nguyen

The video essay’s reintroduction into my adult life was, like many things, a side effect of the pandemic. On days when I couldn’t bring myself to read recreationally, I tried to unwind after work by watching hours and hours of YouTube.

My pseudo-intellectual superego, however, soon became dissatisfied with the brain-numbing monotony of “day in the life” vlogs, old Bon Appétit test kitchen videos, and makeup tutorials. I wanted content that was entertaining, but simultaneously informational, thoughtful, and analytical. In short, I wanted something that gave the impression that I, the passive viewer, was smart. Enter: the video essay.

Video essays have been around for about a decade, if not more, on YouTube. There is some debate over how the form preceded the platform; some film scholars believe the video essay was born out of and remains heavily influenced by essay films , a type of nonfiction filmmaking. Regardless, YouTube has become the undisputed home of the contemporary video essay. Since 2012, when the platform began to prioritize watch-time over views , the genre flourished. These videos became a significant part of the 2010s YouTube landscape, and were popularized by creators across film, politics, and academic subcultures.

Today, there are video essays devoted to virtually any topic you can think of, ranging anywhere from about 10 minutes to upward of an hour. The video essay has been a means to entertain fan theories , explore the lore of a video game or a historical deep dive , explain or critique a social media trend , or like most written essays, expound upon an argument, hypothesis , or curiosity proposed by the creator.

Some of the best-known video essay creators — Lindsay Ellis, Natalie Wynn of ContraPoints, and Abigail Thorn of PhilosophyTube — are often associated with BreadTube , an umbrella term for a group of left-leaning, long-form YouTubers who provide intellectualized commentary on political and cultural topics.

It’s not an exaggeration to claim that I — and many of my fellow Gen Zers — were raised on video essays, academically and intellectually. They were helpful resources for late-night cramming sessions (thanks Crash Course), and responsible for introducing a generation to first-person commentary on all sorts of cultural and political phenomena. Now, the kids who grew up on this content are producing their own.

“Video essays are a form that has lent itself particularly well to pop culture because of its analytical nature,” Madeline Buxton, the culture and trends manager at YouTube, told me. “We are starting to see more creators using video essays to comment on growing trends across social media. They’re serving as sort of real-time internet historians by helping viewers understand not just what is a trend, but the larger cultural context of something.”

A lot has been said about the video essay and its ever-shifting parameters . What does seem newly relevant is how the video essay is becoming repackaged, as long-form video creators find a home on platforms besides YouTube. This has played out concurrently with the pandemic-era shift toward short-form video, with Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube respectively launching Reels, Spotlight, and Shorts to compete against TikTok.

TikTok’s sudden, unwavering rise has proven the viability of bite-size content, and the app’s addictive nature has spawned fears about young people’s dwindling attention spans. Yet, the prevailing popularity of video essays, from new and old creators alike, suggests otherwise. Audiences have not been deterred from watching lengthy videos, nor has the short-form pivot significantly affected creators and their output. Emerging video essayists aren’t shying away from length or nuance, even while using TikTok or Reels as a supplement to grow their online following.

One can even argue that we are witnessing the video essay’s golden era . Run times are longer than ever, while more and more creators are producing long-form videos. The growth of “creator economy” crowdfunding tools, especially during the pandemic, has allowed video essayists to take longer breaks between uploads while retaining their production quality.

“I do feel some pressure to make my videos longer because my audience continues to ask for it,” said Tiffany Ferguson, a YouTube creator specializing in media criticism and pop culture commentary. “I’ve seen comments, both on my own videos and those I watch, where fans are like, ‘Yes, you’re feeding us,’ when it comes to longer videos, especially the hour to two-hour ones. In a way, the mentality seems to be: The longer the better.”

In a Medium post last April, the blogger A. Khaled remarked that viewers were “willing to indulge user-generated content that is as long as a multi-million dollar cinematic production by a major Hollywood studio” — a notion that seemed improbable just a few years ago, even to the most popular video essayists. To creators, this hunger for well-edited, long-form video is unprecedented and uniquely suitable for pandemic times.

The internet might’ve changed what we pay attention to, but it hasn’t entirely shortened our attention span, argued Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media technology at the University of Alabama. “It has made us more selective about the things we want to devote our attention to,” she told me. “People are willing to devote time to content they find interesting.”

“People are willing to devote time to content they find interesting”

Every viewer is different, of course. I find that my attention starts to wane around the 20-minute mark if I’m actively watching and doing nothing else — although I will admit to once spending a non-consecutive four hours on an epic Twin Peaks explainer . Last month, the channel Folding Ideas published a two-hour video essay on “the problem with NFTs,” which has garnered more than 6 million views so far.

Hour-plus-long videos can be hits, depending on the creator, the subject matter, the production quality, and the audience base that the content attracts. There will always be an early drop-off point with some viewers, according to Ferguson, who make it about two to five minutes into a video essay. Those numbers don’t often concern her; she trusts that her devoted subscribers will be interested enough to stick around.

“About half of my viewers watch up to the halfway point, and a smaller group finishes the entire video,” Ferguson said. “It’s just how YouTube is. If your video is longer than two minutes, I think you’re going to see that drop-off regardless if it’s for a video that’s 15 or 60 minutes long.”

Some video essayists have experimented with shorter content as a topic testing ground for longer videos or as a discovery tool to reach new audiences, whether it be on the same platform (like Shorts) or an entirely different one (like TikTok).

“Short-form video can expose people to topics or types of content they’re not super familiar with yet,” Maddox said. “Shorts are almost like a sampling of what you can get with long-form content.” The growth of Shorts, according to Buxton of YouTube, has given rise to this class of “hybrid creators,” who alternate between short- and long-form content. They can also be a starting point for new creators, who are not yet comfortable with scripting a 30-minute video.

Queline Meadows, a student in Ithaca College’s screen cultures program, became interested in how young people were using TikTok to casually talk about film, using editing techniques that borrowed heavily from video essays. She created her own YouTube video essay titled “The Rise of Film TikTok” to analyze the phenomenon, and produces both TikTok micro-essays and lengthy videos.

“I think people have a desire to understand things more deeply,” Meadows told me. “Even with TikTok, I find it hard to unfold an argument or explore multiple angles of a subject. Once people get tired of the hot takes, they want to sit with something that’s more nuanced and in-depth.”

It’s common for TikTokers to tease a multi-part video to gain followers. Many have attempted to direct viewers to their YouTube channel and other platforms for longer content. On the contrary, it’s in TikTok’s best interests to retain creators — and therefore viewers — on the app. In late February, TikTok announced plans to extend its maximum video length from three minutes to 10 minutes , more than tripling a video’s run-time possibility. This decision arrived months after TikTok’s move last July to start offering three-minute videos .

As TikTok inches into YouTube-length territory, Spotify, too, has introduced video on its platform, while YouTube has similarly signaled an interest in podcasting . In October, Spotify began introducing “video podcasts,” which allows listeners (or rather, viewers) to watch episodes. Users have the option to toggle between actively watching a podcast or traditionally listening to one.

What’s interesting about the video podcast is how Spotify is positioning it as an interchangeable, if not more intimate, alternative to a pure audio podcast. The video essay, then, appears to occupy a middle ground between podcast and traditional video by making use of these key elements. For creators, the boundaries are no longer so easy to define.

“Some video essay subcultures are more visual than others, while others are less so,” said Ferguson, who was approached by Spotify to upload her YouTube video essays onto the platform last year. “I was already in the process of trying to upload just the audio of my old videos since that’s more convenient for people to listen to and save on their podcast app. My reasoning has always been to make my content more accessible.”

To Ferguson, podcasts are a natural byproduct of the video essay. Many viewers are already consuming lengthy videos as ambient entertainment, as content to passively listen to while doing other tasks. The video essay is not a static format, and its development is heavily shaped by platforms, which play a crucial role in algorithmically determining how such content is received and promoted. Some of these changes are reflective of cultural shifts, too.

Maddox, who researches digital culture and media, has a theory that social media discourse is becoming less reactionary. She described it as a “simmering down” of the hot take, which is often associated with cancel culture . These days, more creators are approaching controversy from a removed, secondhand standpoint; they seem less interested in engendering drama for clicks. “People are still providing their opinions, but in conjunction with deep analysis,” Maddox said. “I think it says a lot about the state of the world and what holds people’s attention.”

That’s the power of the video essay. Its basic premise — whether the video is a mini-explainer or explores a 40-minute hypothesis — requires the creator to, at the very least, do their research. This often leads to personal disclaimers and summaries of alternative opinions or perspectives, which is very different from the more self-centered “reaction videos” and “story time” clickbait side of YouTube.

“The things I’m talking about are bigger than me. I recognize the limitations of my own experience,” Ferguson said. “Once I started talking about intersections of race, gender, sexuality — so many experiences that were different from my own — I couldn’t just share my own narrow, straight, white woman perspective. I have to provide context.”

This doesn’t change the solipsistic nature of the internet, but it is a positive gear shift, at least in the realm of social media discourse, that makes being chronically online a little less soul-crushing. The video essay, in a way, encourages us to engage in good faith with ideas that we might not typically entertain or think of ourselves. Video essays can’t solve the many problems of the internet (or the world, for that matter), but they can certainly make learning about them a little more bearable.

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School uniform expert shares five tips to make clothes last longer including £2.50 hack

Lacey Roebuck, commercial manager at Sports Direct, has shared her top tips to ensure children get the most out of their school uniform - and it's easier than you might think

• 15:38, 8 SEP 2024

As children return to school, many parents will be feeling the pinch financially as it can be a huge expense.

It's always disheartening to see our little ones come home with scuffed shoes, torn tights or worn-out trouser knees within the first few days of term. Luckily, a school uniform expert has shared five top tips to help children's clothes last longer .

Lacey Roebuck, Commercial Manager at Sports Direct , understands the importance of parents getting value for money when it comes to outfitting their children for school, whether that's due to playground wear and tear or sudden growth spurts.

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The store's research reveals that the top five items most frequently replaced are shirts and polos (33%); trousers or shorts (29%); socks or tights (25%); school shoes (25%); and dresses and skirts (15%).

The study also showed the top five items most often repaired are trousers or shorts (27%); shirts or polos (17%); jumpers or cardigans (15%); school shoes (12%); and blazers or smart jackets (12%).

Delay your shopping as much as you can.

"Whilst our research has shown that parents shop for school uniforms on average 16-18 days prior to the start of term, if you want your items to get their wear, we would advise leaving it later, as close to their first day as possible, especially if your children are still young", Lacey explains.

"By purchasing items in the days leading up, such as school shoes and PE trainers, you ensure a better fit that will last longer throughout the year, avoiding the need for early replacements due to your little ones outgrowing them."

Reinforce high-wear areas with fusible interfacing.

Fusible interfacing is a trick used in sewing and is an inexpensive way of reinforcing high-wear areas in uniform. What's more, it's easy to install, costing as little as £2.50 per roll.

"The best way to use it is to start by laying out all items of clothing you want to reinforce before the term starts, such as trousers, jumpers, cardigans, and shirts," Lacey explains. "Measure and cut square pieces of the iron-on material, and attach them to the inside of any knees, elbows, or hems. This will help to prevent tears and extend the garment's life."

Try tweezers on school shoes.

"Tweezers will be your best friend when it comes to school shoes or trainers," Lacey adds. "A lot of these items will have touch strap fasteners and as a result of its sticky nature, they can quickly become home to hair, dust, and thread, impacting their ability to stay put."

Lacey also says that simply spending 10 minutes every few weeks picking the dirt out of the straps will extend the life of the shoes considerably, ensuring that they stay intact for longer. For lunch boxes and school bags with similar material, the same rule applies.

Use a fabric protector.

Fabric protector will "save the day" if your child is prone to staining their clothes, Lacey explains in her fourth piece of advice. "The key is to start using this before they return to the classroom and remain consistent," she adds.

"Spray each item prior to their first wear and then continue this after every few washes. It will help stains from setting in and will make any spillages easier to clean when they get home."

Consider bigger sizes and use metal poppers.

Buying your child's uniform in the size above their usual one is another simple, yet low-cost trick all parents can adopt. Lacey concludes: "Installing metal poppers near the hem, so you can easily adjust the length of the item as they grow."

"This works best on items such as trousers or shorts and dresses or skirts where the length can easily be altered."

• Most Recent

How to Make ChatGPT Write Longer

Are you wondering, “How do I get ChatGPT to write longer?” Well, you’re not the only one.

The chatbot’s word limit is approximately 500 words per answer. Many students use this tool to generate essay samples, and they often need texts that are much longer than the word limit permits.

If you want to know how to overcome this issue, this article is for you. It will examine ways to make ChatGPT come up with longer texts and explain how to utilize AI tools as assistants. Ready? Let’s roll!

Disclaimer: We don’t encourage using ChatGPT to cheat or create academic papers. This article will discuss ethical ways of using AI.

• ✍️ Different Essays Length
• 🤔 How to Make ChatGPT Write Longer

🚀 Other Ways to Expand Your Texts

• 🙅‍♀️ 12 Mistakes to Avoid
• 🎁 Extending Your Essay Without AI

🔗 References

✍️ different essays length (by study level and genre).

The length of an academic paper depends on the topic’s complexity, the essay’s type, and the guidelines given by your instructor. Before you start working on a project, consider these factors to ensure it meets the requirements.

Here’s how an essay’s length differs depending on the academic level:

• Middle school papers are normally simple and short, between 300 to 1000 words long.
• High school-level essays range between 300 and 1000 words.
• Undergraduate program assignments often fall within the range of 1500 to 5000 words.
• Graduate program papers are often specialized and focused on research. Their word count ranges from 3000 to 10,000 words.

If we’re talking about essay genres, this is what you should keep in mind:

As you can see, a lot of essay types require the maximum amount of words ChatGPT can produce, and some of them are even longer than that. If you wish to generate a sample essay for inspiration, you’ll have to use hacks and tricks to make the chatbot write more. We’ll tell you all about them in the following sections.

🤔 How to Actually Make ChatGPT Write Longer

Now, let’s take a look at how to make ChatGPT write longer stories, code, essays, and other forms of content.

Writing a Prompt That Makes ChatGPT Write Longer

ChatGPT’s answers are only as good as your prompts. If you learn how to compose them properly, you will have no problem bypassing the chatbot’s word limit.

Check out the top 11 tried-and-true tips to get longer answers from ChatGPT below:

1. Make Your Prompt Specific and Logical

The scope of the bot’s response depends on how precise your prompt is. Try to use straightforward language and avoid fluff in your requests.

2. Request Examples

Examples add context and clarity to a text. Ask the algorithm to provide them, and it will add real-life instances and details, extending the response.

3. Provide Specific Word Count

One way to get ChatGPT to create more extended essays is to specify a word count. For instance, instead of typing “write an article about France,” you can say “write an 800-word article about the French Revolution.” Additional details will guide the tool and help it produce a longer response.

4. Break Down the Prompt

Another good strategy is to divide your instructions into several parts. This lets the algorithm to take more things into account.

5. Ask Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions invite for a deeper discussion. If you use them with ChatGPT, it’ll provide you with a detailed reply instead of a brief answer.

6. Set a Personality

You will get better and more detailed results if you get the chatbot to behave as a particular persona. For instance, if you work on an argumentative essay, you can ask the AI to act as an animal rights activist who argues that animal testing should be banned.

Upgrade Your Prompt with These Tricks

So, you’ve entered a well-written prompt, but you may still need to tweak the response to make it fit your requirements. Here’s what you can do as a follow-up to your query:

7. Regenerate a Response

Sometimes, to get a lengthier answer, all you need to do is click the “regenerate response” button. If the rewritten version still is too short, regenerate it again.

8. Ask to Elaborate

Another option is to throw in follow-up requests like “elaborate more on this.” The chatbot will give you a more precise answer than the previous one.

9. Ask to Explain & Continue

If ChatGPT hits its word limit and leaves the answer incomplete, use “continue” or “go on” in your next request to nudge the algorithm to keep generating.

10. Provide Extra Questions

You can incorporate follow-up questions to maintain engagement and encourage the AI model to expand on the responses.

11. Inquire a Comparison

This is a handy option when working on an analysis. When you ask ChatGPT to compare two things, the output will likely be comprehensive and detailed. Comparisons involve benefits, drawbacks, and other dimensions that will make the response longer and your study more comprehensive.

The following tools will help you improve your analysis even further:

• Rhetorical device finder will locate ethos, pathos, and logos in a piece of text.
• Quote explainer will assist in understanding famous sayings or literary quotations.
• Poem analyzer will be a great helper whenever you need to understand literary devices in poetry.

Now, you might be curious whether there are ways to extend a text without help from ChatGPT. The answer is—there definitely are! More and more tools with great features are being designed to make writing easier. Check out the options below to learn more.

IvyPanda Essay Extender

IvyPanda’s essay extender is specifically designed to help users reach the desired number of words. All you need to do is copy the text into the box, choose the word count you want, and press the “extend” button.

The tool can also be used to generate additional segments for an essay. For instance, if you struggle with the conclusion, the tool can create a sample paragraph based on your prompt.

Is IvyPanda’s extender better than ChatGPT? Well, there are plenty of aspects that make our tool a superior option:

• Unlike the chatbot, our tool generates its answers immediately and never glitches.
• Our generator is easy to apply: there’s no need to write long instructions and explain everything to get relevant responses.

Try it and see the benefits for yourself!

Question Generator from Text

IvyPands’s AI question generator from text is super handy whenever you need to extend your text. This tool creates a list of questions related to the text you paste into it. These questions will help you look at the subject from a different perspective and find new ideas with which to lengthen your essay.

Of course, you can also use ChatGPT for this task. However, the chatbot tends to get too general with the topic and may generate irrelevant questions.

In contrast, our question generator will develop just the right number of questions. You can then feed them into ChatGPT to get sample answers and use them to extend your essay.

Feel free to use other smart tools developed by IvyPanda to add parts to your essay:

• Essay hook generator will help you come up with a catchy opening paragraph.
• Research introduction maker will generate the background of your study.
• Free ChatGPT essay writer will provide you with additional samples.
• Abstract generator is a great tool for creating a summary of a research paper.

ChatGPT Playground

ChatGPT Playground is powered by Open AI API services. It lets users experiment with natural language models, parameters, and more without writing code.

Here are some of the tool’s main features:

• Temperature controls how random the text that ChatGPT generates is. Assigning it a higher value will make a response more creative while lowering it will result in plain answers.
• Top P is another way to control a text’s predictability. It determines how many words can be used to continue the phrase.
• The maximum length parameter specifies the highest number of output tokens (these are units of text generated by AI.)
• Stop sequences allow you to control the length of the content the algorithm generates implicitly.
• The frequency and presence penalty feature lets you control how often specific tokens appear in the text.

ChatGPT Playground is a fantastic solution, but it’s not free. For the first 3 months, users have $18 of free credits to test the tool. Once they run out of credits, they have to purchase a subscription.

AI Services & Plugins

Even though ChatGPT is widely considered the best free generative AI, there are numerous other tools and extensions from which you can benefit. They will assist you when working with the chatbot or help you generate new information for your project.

Some great ChatGPT alternatives are tools like Gemini , Bing , and Perplexity AI . And in case you want to improve your prompts and get more relevant responses, check out services such as AI Prompt Genius , WebChatGPT , Merlin , ChatOnAI , and PromptPerfect .

We will describe some of our favorite solutions below – be sure to check them out!

Gemini is an excellent alternative to ChatGPT if you want to make an essay longer. It has impressive features that simply can’t be overlooked:

• Multiple drafts . It gives more than one response to your input. Use any one you like to lengthen your text.
• Real-time data . It provides you with the latest information and real-time data instantly.
• Text input enriched with images . It can generate visuals and offer detailed descriptions of existing pictures or videos.
• Adjustable responses . It allows you to customize answers by marking them as creative or straightforward based on your preference.
• Advanced language model . Gemini uses LaMDA model, which aims to generate content that sounds very human-like. In contrast, ChatGPT uses GPT models, which focus on supplying information and tend to sound robotic.

Bing search engine has undergone impressive positive changes. Here are the features that make it so attractive:

• Bing Compose . The feature provides ready-made options to help you develop a high-quality prompt.
• Knowledge Cards 2.0 . The cards are displayed on the right side of your search. They provide additional information you can use for an essay, such as a timeline of related events.
• Stories . AI-generated stories combine text, images, video, and audio to deliver information on your search.
• AI-enhanced search . This feature offers additional information, widgets, and tools for every search.
• Cutting-edge chatbot . Bing’s very own chatbot Copilot uses OpenAI’s language model that can easily generate high-quality texts.
• Access to sources . Bing’s biggest advantage is that it provides sources it uses to generate answers. You can double-check them yourself and include them in an essay as references.

Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI is a search engine similar to ChatGPT, but it has some unique features that make all the difference:

• The users can see where the information in the answer came from. It helps to evaluate the accuracy and allows you to quickly locate sources for your paper’s additional parts.
• The tool uses NLP and machine learning algorithms, ensuring relevant results.
• It has a related queries feature similar to Google’s “related searches.” It can help you find fresh ideas to incorporate into your essay and lengthen it.
• By default, Perplexity AI uses the GPT-3 model, but you can access GPT-4 if you upgrade to Pro.
• Unlike ChatGPT, Perplexity has access to the entire internet and can retrieve latest data.

AI Prompt Genius

You can think of AI Prompt Genius as a cheat sheet for prompts to apply when working with AI. Here are its benefits:

• It gathers user-generated requests and sorts them into categories. This way, you can easily browse through topics such as business, academic writing, and others.
• Another great feature is that you can customize and save recently used prompts to reuse them later.
• Being able to access a variety of prompts will definitely improve your writing experience. So, if you need to write papers on a constant basis, this tool is a saver.

WebChatGPT is an extension that allows users to access ChatGPT through web browsers. It’s a convenient option if you want to use the chatbot’s capabilities while surfing the internet.

Check out its other benefits below:

• This tool is compatible with all popular search platforms. If you’re trying to extend an essay, you may find it helpful that the bot answers questions right beside the search results.
• The extension is also user-friendly when it comes to prompt features. You can access a library with one click and manage your own prompts.

ChatOnAI extension integrates ChatGPT right into your browsing window. It displays responses from the algorithm alongside search results. This feature lets you quickly gather ideas for additional content and run them through the chatbot, providing you with more content to extend your essay.

Another aspect that makes the tool super convenient is that it gives users access to top ChatGPT prompts for SEO, art, programming, marketing, and more. Templates at hand can significantly boost productivity and help you improve a paper.

PromptPerfect

PromptPerfect is a must-have tool for students, content creators, AI developers, or engineers.

The primary goal of PromptPerfect is to optimize prompts for language models like LLMs, LMs, and LMOps. Here are its main features and benefits:

• It allows users to automatically enhance prompts for various AI models.
• It supports SOTA AI models and lets users improve prompts for Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, GPT-3/3.5, GPT-4, DALL-E 2, and MidJourney.
• It lets users customize prompts – for example, to tailor them to yield longer responses.

Whether you’re a student or a writer, this Chrome extension is perfect if you’re looking to extend your generated text. With this tool, you’ll gain access to meticulously crafted prompt templates. You name a domain, and you get to it in just a click.

What makes AIPRM different from other extensions is the big prompt engineering community. This community has curated an extensive collection that covers various topics and is waiting to be explored.

🙅‍♀ How to NOT Get ChatGPT to Write Longer Essays – 12 Common Mistakes

Even though AI is getting smarter and may one day take over the world, it still remains a technology that carries out human requests and instructions. That’s also one of the reasons why it’s essential to create high-quality prompts to get relevant results when working with ChatGPT.

Whenever you work with the chatbot, make sure to avoid these widespread mistakes:

• Requesting factual data from ChatGPT. What to do instead: An AI tool is not an encyclopedia. Use it to brainstorm but rely on traditional research methods to get facts.
• Giving up too soon. What to do instead: If the results are not what you’ve envisioned, try rewording or simplifying your request.
• Giving insufficient context. What to do instead: The more context you can give to the AI, the better.
• Having too many instructions in a single prompt. What to do instead: Instead of putting everything in one request, split it into smaller ones.
• Omitting examples. What to do instead: Add specific references to enhance the accuracy of ChatGPT’s responses.
• Failing to guide the AI in a structured manner. What to do instead: Break down the writing process into stages.
• Mixing different topics or tasks in one chat. What to do instead: Since ChatGPT remembers the context throughout a conversation, it’s best to use different chats for each topic.
• Creating lengthy sessions that lead to irrelevant answers. What to do instead: When you see that a chat is getting too long, create a new one.
• Set for the first output and limit the potential. What to do instead: Generate several responses and select the best one.
• Confusing ChatGPT by being overly polite. What to do instead: ChatGPT is not a person, so use direct and unambiguous language instead of being mannerly.
• Making prompts too broad. What to do instead: Be specific to ensure accurate results.
• Never cleaning up the conversations. What to do instead: Remove old conversations you don’t plan to use and keep those you’ll refer to again.

🎁 How to Make Your Essay Longer Without AI: 7 Bonus Tips

So, we’ve talked about how to get ChatGPT to write more extended essays or use other AI tools to do the task. But what do you do if you need to lengthen a text without having access to any software?

Well, that’s not a problem at all! Check out this list of bonus tips that’ll help you create longer papers on your own:

• Be descriptive. When your essay is short on words, add details and elaborate on the topic.
• Draw a conclusion. Making a final point about your thesis can add several paragraphs to your piece.
• Minimize pronouns. Use specific names whenever possible to extend your paper, but avoid getting wordy.
• Support your ideas. Add relevant quotations, statistics, or real-life examples to lengthen your essay.
• Incorporate a concluding sentence in each paragraph. This will help you structure the paper as well as increase the number of words.
• Add transitional phrases. This will extend the text and make it flow better.
• Provide background information. Giving more details on the subject will help you increase the word count.

Whenever you work on a writing assignment, you can improve the outcome with the help of our study tools:

• Use our free plagiarism checker to ensure your writing is 100% unique.
• Run your text through an essay reader to ensure it has a good flow.
• Check the results with our AI detector for essays for free.

Now, you know all about generating longer texts and extending essays with or without AI. Here’s a quick recap:

• Write specific, detailed instructions.
• Request the algorithm to provide examples.
• Mention the desired word count in your query.
• Formulate the request as an open-ended question.
• Ask the chatbot to act as a specific personality.
• Break down the prompt into several smaller ones.
• Use follow-up requests to elaborate or continue writing.

And once your sample essay is ready, you can edit and improve it. Want to know how? Check out our guide on using ChatGPT to edit essays .

Remember to only use AI as assistance! Artificial intelligence can be a great helper for those who want to improve their work rather than generate entire papers. You can always use bots ethically and without breaking the school’s rules.

If you need help to make your essay reach the required word count, check out IvyPanda essay extender or other tools suggested in this article. Good luck with your future projects!

Recommended for you:

• How to Use ChatGPT for Research & Paper Writing: Prompts & Ideas
• Best AI Tools for Writing & Editing Essays
• How to Make AI-Generated Text Undetectable
• Four Tricks to Get Around ChatGPT’s Character Limit: Lifehacker
• Do ChatGPT Responses Have a Character or Word Limit?: MakeUseOf
• Getting Started with Prompts for Text-Based Generative AI Tools: Harvard University
• Making Your Paper Longer: George Mason University
• The 7 Types of Essays Every Student Needs to Know: Grammarly
• 5 Mistakes I Learned to Avoid When Working with ChatGPT: Entrepreneur
• How to Make ChatGPT Write Longer: Nerds Chalk
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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — TikTok — TikTok’s Impact on Social Media

Tiktok's Impact on Social Media

• Categories: TikTok

About this sample

Words: 850 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 850 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Understanding tiktok's impact on social media, analyzing the positive aspects of tiktok, evaluating the negative aspects of tiktok, examining the controversies surrounding tiktok.

• Nandini Jammi, "TikTok is going to outlast Trump, but in the end, we're used to being guinea pigs," Poynter Institute, August 13, 2020.
• John E. Dunn, "Why privacy advocates hate TikTok," Naked Security by Sophos, July 28, 2020.
• Karen Hao, "The complete guide to TikTok safety settings," MIT Technology Review, July 31, 2020.

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Guest Essay

After 17 Years in Prison, I’m a Different Person. Do Cases Like Mine Deserve a Second Look?

By Joseph Sanchez

Mr. Sanchez is a writer incarcerated in New York.

At 21, I was a full-time college student. I also sold drugs and carried guns. In the early-morning hours of April 7, 2007, I was shot on a Bronx street, along with two other people. I survived. One person didn’t. The third, who was badly injured, gave testimony at trial that suggested I shot everyone, including myself. Based on that, I was convicted of all charges.

I maintain my innocence, but I am not here to convince you of that. Innocent-man narratives often discount the need for reforms to help all people, including guilty people. I want to tell you instead about the person I have become over the past 17 years in prison and the people I have met here.

At Sullivan Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in the Catskill Mountains in New York, I’m incarcerated with men who have earned college degrees while incarcerated and who fill their days with volunteer work. Despite bettering our lives — or aging out of criminal behavior — we have no opportunity to demonstrate our rehabilitation outside of parole hearings that may come decades in the future.

Lawmakers across the country have proposed so-called Second Look laws. The First Step Act, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018, gave federal judges the discretion to reduce the sentences of people convicted of federal crimes when there’s compelling evidence to do so.

In New York, State Senator Julia Salazar has introduced legislation that could help reset past policies that contributed to ballooning populations in state prisons. The state’s Second Look legislation would allow judges to weigh factors like victim impact statements, age, whether the prisoners were penalized for bringing their cases to trial (instead of accepting a plea bargain) and participation in rehabilitation programming when considering sentence reductions.

The bill is receiving plenty of support, including from people who will make decisions about the fates of prisoners, like the chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Rowan Wilson . While running for re-election last year, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said , “Ultimately, there may be individuals who are incarcerated on sentences that no longer meet today’s sensibility of justice.”

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Influencer Resources By TRIBE

How to Make Longer TikToks: 6 Tips to Nail the New Max Video Length

@noriharewood

for Airbabble

TikTok played an undeniably colossal role in the rise in popularity of short form videos, and forcing Creators to stick to a short time limit really drove creativity. But now, TikTok has changed its maximum video length from 3 minutes to a whopping 10 whole minutes.

Some people have pushed back against the change, arguing that 10-minute videos belong on YouTube, but we think it’s a great opportunity for Creators to mix up their content on TikTok and start branching out from short, snappy videos to longer, more thought out content.

How to make longer TikToks

Make sure you have access to the new feature.

• Open the TikTok app on your phone

• Click the + sign at the bottom of the screen to open the camera

• Above the record button, you should be able to swipe across the different time limits to see if you have the 10-minute option.

If you don’t see it, update your app via the App Store to make sure you’ve got the latest version. Still not there? Don’t worry! The feature is being rolled out in phases, so not everyone has access just yet — but it’ll hit your account soon.

Start putting together your video

It works just like the shorter video length you’re used to, but you’ve obviously got more time to work with. You can record a total length of 10 minutes directly in the app, starting and stopping as needed. Or upload multiple video clips and images from your camera roll if you’ve pre-recorded your content.

Find inspo: Here’s 6 ideas for making long-form TikTok content

Yes, 10 minutes may seem like a long time for a TikTok video. Some of you might even remember when TikToks were limited to 15 seconds! But the social platform is all about creativity and experimentation, and some Creators are really using this new 10-minute length to their advantage. Here’s how:

Everyone loves a good storytime video. In the past, TikTok storytimes had to be condensed into a quick 60 seconds or split into multiple parts. 

The ability to upload a single 10-minute video is revolutionising the storytime format, especially for Creators who aim to engage. Rather than rushing through a story or editing in lots of cuts, Creators can now tell their stories in a format we’re more used to seeing on YouTube. We’re talking dramatic pauses, lots of backstories, and building suspense. The key is to make sure that the entire 10 minutes is engaging. Give viewers a reason to keep watching until the end.

@jessicavanel I gotta say... Making Magic is a lot of fun! #wholesome #disney #disneyworld ♬ original sound - Jessica V.

Q&A videos are an excellent way for your followers to get to know you a bit better. It’s quite common to see Q&A’s on Instagram, usually with the Question sticker on a Story. This access to 10-minute TikTok videos will allow Creators to do in-depth Q&A videos on TikTok too! 

Tell your followers to submit questions in the comment section of another video, then pick the ones you want to answer, settle in, and start filming! Though some Creators love using the Live feature on TikTok to do Q&A sessions, everyone can see the comments as they come in — making it harder to dodge anything you don’t want to answer. 

Daily vlogs have always been en vogue. You can't go wrong with a daily vlog — from 20-minute long YouTube videos to 15-second montages on Reels. 

TikTok’s 10-minute feature is the perfect mid-way point between Reels and a YouTube video. Your TikToks can be less polished than YouTube, while you can definitely get a bit deeper than you could with a Reel.

Film your day as you go along, edit it together in the evening, and post it to TikTok that night. It’s a great way to show more of the behind-the-scenes of your life (an already huge trend on TikTok).

@orendaduong just another wednesday existing 😌 #dailyvlog #minivlog #vlog #nyc #morningroutine ♬ original sound - ASTN

DIY videos have been big on TikTok since the app’s inception, and they really boomed in popularity during COVID lockdowns. From tie-dye shirts and punch needle rugs to furniture upholstery and room makeovers, the DIY opportunities are endless. And having 10 minutes of video means you can go into more detail about each step of the DIY process.

Mukbangs — where Creators eat a meal while talking directly to the camera — had a real heyday a few years back. Though the trend was solely found on YouTube, Creators now have a chance to bring it back with 10-minute TikTok videos. 

It’s a great way to update your followers on anything going on in your life — relationship breakups, career wins, travel stories — in a more casual way than a Q&A.

@how.kev.eats Reply to @afreenreza First time trying Bangladeshi food #mukbang #foodreview ♬ original sound - how.kev.eats

Morning routine

We seem to be fascinated with watching other peoples’ morning routines. YouTube, Insta, and TikTok are all full of videos montaging Creators’ skincare, breakfast, gym routine, makeup, and more. 

A 10-minute morning routine video is a great way to go more in-depth into what you’re doing, whether it’s sharing a pancake recipe, explaining your favourite skincare products, or even responding to some journal prompts. Seeing an entire morning routine in real-time is an innovative way to engage your followers.

Remember: you don't have to make a 10-minute video just because you can

Don’t get caught up in the excitement and churn out mediocre content for the sake of it. Make sure you’re creating something worthwhile, that you’re proud of and that your audience will want to see. 

Don’t be afraid to experiment, but remember that your 10-minute videos need to work in tandem with the rest of your content, and most of all match your style.

Ready to up your TikTok game?

Working with brands is one of the best ways to grow your audience and have fun with your content. If you’re not sure where to start, TRIBE  is the ideal launchpad. Browse through hundreds of brands with active campaigns, submit content or pitch to win, and start earning by doing what you love – creating real, authentic, and engaging content.

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