Natalia Adomaitis, Lam Hoang, Maryam Shama, Sydney Trieu, Kristina Zhao
TikTok is a growing social media platform that launched in 2016 and since has gained 1 billion monthly active users, 60% of which are a part of the Gen Z demographic. Many influencers have rapidly grown in popularity, leading to social changes due to trendsetting by these influencers. In our study, we analyzed linguistic features used by three TikTok influencers: Erika Titus, Katie Fang, and Alix Earle. Our goal was to analyze how the use of two linguistic features: filler words and rising intonation (uptalk) by female Gen Z TikTok influencers impact engagement. We gathered data by comparing analytics of 6 videos from each of the three influencers, 3 of which being their most popular videos and 3 being of average performance. We tracked the number of times rising intonation and filler words were used per video along with video length and amount of views and likes. We hypothesized that influencers incorporate these specific linguistic elements to better relate with their audience, which ultimately leads to an increase in video engagement.
Introduction and Background TikTok has become one of the most popular video-sharing social media apps since its launch in 2016. Approximately 60% of the users and influencers who daily consume or create content on this app belong to Gen Z (Moshin, 2022; Rezek, 2022). In addition, it is predicted that TikTok will have 1.8 billion monthly users by the end of 2024 (Iqbal, 2024). Because of the rapid growth of this app in recent years, in addition to its daily prevalence in our target demographic of Gen Z individuals (ranging from ages 18-24), and its continuous expected growth, we were motivated to investigate if the verbal linguistic content, or language and speech pattern used by TikTok influencers, had any role or influence in determining the success of their videos. Our research focused on the sociolinguistic features frequently observed in the language content from popular TikTok influencers: Erika Titus, Katie Fang, and Alix Earle. Specifically, we analyzed upward intonation, filler words, “Valley Girl” speech, and conversational style. Erika Titus, Katie Fang, and Alix Earle all have a substantial following with Titus having 4 million followers, Fang with 5.1 million followers, and Earle at 6.8 million followers as well as belonging to the Gen Z demographic. Geographically, Titus along with Earle were born in the U.S. and currently reside in the U.S., and Fang was born in Taiwan, but resides in Canada. These influencers mainly create lifestyle content such as daily routines, “get ready with me” videos, fashion choices, and product endorsements. Erika Titus and Katie Fang similarly produce casual, at-home, sit-down videos, whereas Alix Earle creates more spontaneous videos in addition to at-home style videos. Our overall hypothesis is that video success (high like and view count) is attributed to influencers’ use of sociolinguistic features: upward intonation, filler words, and “Valley Girl” speech, which contribute to creating a conversation-like style that is effective at engaging and connecting with the Gen Z audience. Methods Our project aimed to investigate the impact of filler words and rising intonation phrases on the success of TikTok influencers’ videos. Success was measured through view count and like count, assessing whether there was a correlation between the frequency of these linguistic features and video engagement success. To conduct this study, we analyzed six videos from each of the three selected TikTok influencers. For each influencer, three of their best-engaged videos (identified by the highest number of likes and views) were selected, along with three average-performing videos. Several key factors were tracked for each video. We recorded the number of rising intonation phrases and counted the occurrences of filler words such as “like,” “literally,” and “um.” Additionally, we noted the number of likes and views to measure engagement success and tracked the length of each video in seconds for further analysis. This methodology enabled us to compare the frequency of linguistic features across different levels of video success. We hypothesized that a higher frequency of filler words and rising intonation phrases would correlate with an increase in views and likes, suggesting these linguistic features enhance engagement. Results and Analyses Following our methods, our results are shown below: From this data, we extract two key metrics: the average frequency of rising intonation and the average frequency of filler words. We focus on the frequency of these elements in terms of occurrences per unit time (e.g., one occurrence every x seconds) rather than their rate (e.g., x occurrences per second). This perspective allows us to contextualize sociolinguistic factors within TikTok videos, which are short-form content designed to capture attention. Following our hypothesis, influencers’ most popular videos tend to employ rising intonation or filler words frequently (e.g., every 5 seconds) to maintain audience engagement. Based on our hypothesis, we expect that higher average frequencies of rising intonation and filler words are correlated with more likes and views on the videos. We will compare these metrics between popular and less popular videos to potentially reveal their effects on engagement. Initially, we will analyze the data for each influencer individually before aggregating and analyzing the data as a whole. Erika Titus: As observed in Erika Titus’s case, her popular videos exhibit an average of one rising intonation every 18 seconds, while her regular videos feature an average of one rising intonation every 9 seconds. Similarly, the frequency of filler words is lower in her popular videos compared to her regular ones. These patterns suggest that for Erika Titus, both rising intonation and filler words appear to have an inverse relationship with engagement, implying that lower frequencies of these features may be associated with higher popularity. Katie Fang: Moving on to Katie Fang, we observe a similar pattern to that seen in Erika Titus’s videos. Katie’s popular videos exhibit a lower frequency of rising intonation and filler words compared to her regular videos. Both factors again seem to have an inverse effect on engagement. From the line graphs depicting sociolinguistic factors versus views, it appears that these sociolinguistic features negatively correlate with views, suggesting that lower frequencies may contribute to higher popularity. Alix Earle: For Alix Earle, we observe the opposite pattern compared to Erika Titus and Katie Fang. Alix’s popular videos have a higher frequency of both rising intonation and filler words. These factors appear to have a positive effect on engagement. The line graphs depict a positive linear relationship between both rising intonation and filler words with views and likes, suggesting that higher frequencies of these features are associated with increased popularity. Overall: Looking at the data across all three influencers, we observe that popular videos generally exhibit a higher frequency of both rising intonation and filler words. These factors appear to have a positive effect on views and likes. However, the line graphs reveal scattered data, and the line of best fit does not clearly indicate a direct relationship, suggesting that other variables may also influence engagement. Discussions and Conclusions To summarize, Erika Titus and Katie Fang’s data do not support our hypothesis, but most of the data we collected from Alix Earle’s does support our hypothesis. Given these findings, our data is inconclusive about whether or not rising intonation and the use of filler words have a positive effect on the success of audience engagement on TikTok. The differences in like and view count in the data between the influencers can be attributed to multiple factors that would need to be taken into consideration and further researched. Elements such as differences in influencers’ backgrounds, the racial identity and/or personality traits of the influencers, video content, and editing style may have played a role in the use of “uptalk” and filler words, which in turn would affect the success of their videos (Swerts, 1998). Additionally, negative associations with “Valley Girl” speech could have also played a role in causing less engagement from audiences. Use of this speech by individuals who might not sociologically parallel the stereotypes accompanying the linguistic features of the “Valley Girl” accent, such as “being white, privileged”, can raise questions about how authenticity is perceived by the Gen Z audience, as well as reveal structural biases held by audiences on TikTok (Habasque, 2021). In an article by Sophia Smith Gaeler, Gaeler elaborates on the identities associated with these speech patterns and how linguistic features of female TikTok influencers can pave the way for new forms of English to evolve. (Gaeler, 2024). Furthermore, having a substantial following and audience can potentially cause the influencer to be or appear more anxious, which in turn may lead to the use of more filler words that can also impact the success of a video (Bodie, 2010). Video length, content, quality, and editing styles could also be investigated. We observed that Alix Earle created more spontaneous content, while Erika Titus and Katie Fang created more at-home content, which may have impacted the relevancy of the content to the viewer. The general public views spontaneous content as a reflection of the influencer’s true self. In a study done by Jacqueline Rifkin and Katherine Du, the participants rated content creators as “more sincere, genuine, and authentic.” (Du and Rikfin, 2023). Therefore, more people would be drawn to influencers that create more spontaneous content, which in turn would influence which particular linguistic features they utilize to engage their audiences. Editing styles such as “jump cuts” which produce choppy transitions, can result in the cutting off of rising intonation at the end of a video and negatively affect the success of the video. As reported, the effect of these jump cuts can affect our brain’s perception of what we visually and audibly understand as starting or ending (McMullan, 2021). While collecting data, it was observed that Erika Titus and Katie Fang had choppier editing in their videos. Additional research would be needed to determine if content with these factors negatively impacts the quality of the video, in addition to the viewer’s experience, and therefore resulting in a lower like count. Moreover, other aspects like trends, hashtags, and the TikTok algorithm in addition to the aforementioned factors, can inconclusively support that linguistic styles may have more of an impact on the type of audience influencers attract, rather than audience engagement or video success. Further research can be done to analyze other linguistic styles in comparison to “Valley Girl” speech and possibly account for linguistic features like word choice and vocal fry, to determine more conclusive results about the positive effects of linguistic features on audience engagement or the prevalence of certain linguistic features across varying categories of content. For example, in an article by Alice Hall on Vice, she discusses how different types of content utilize different linguistic features to capture audiences and maintain their engagement (Hall, 2023). Other research can be done to investigate how influencers linguistically construct their personal brands, what linguistic techniques or features influencers use to engage with their audience in comments and direct messages, or how influencers use language to build and maintain a community among their followers. This research and further research’s findings exemplify how language adapts and evolves with the increasing use of digital media and technology. It also contributes to the construction of personal identity and community on digital platforms. Lastly, it can be used to analyze how to engage audiences and keep their engagement from a marketing standpoint. References Bodie, G. D. (2010). A Racing Heart, Rattling Knees, and Ruminative Thoughts: Defining, Explaining, and Treating Public Speaking Anxiety. Communication Education, 59(1), 70–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520903443849. Habasque, P. (2021, December 21). Is creaky voice a valley girl feature? Stancetaking & Evolution of … Anglophonia. French Journal of English Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.4000/anglophonia.4104. McMullan, J. (2021b, January 21). View of the Great Jump Cut (r)evolution: A case for studying the evolution of vlogging production techniques. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10547/11266. Mohsin, M. (2022, September 3). 10 TikTok Statistics That You Need to Know in 2019 [Infographic]. Oberlo; Oberlo Dropshipping app. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics. Nycum, R. (2018, May). In Defense of Valley Girl English. In The Compass (Vol. 1, No. 5, p. 4). Rezek, A. “How Brands Go Viral: An Analysis of Successful Brand Marketing on Tik Tok with Gen Z” (2022). Honors Theses. 2645. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2645. Swerts, M. (1998). Filled pauses as markers of discourse structure. Journal of Pragmatics, 30(4), 485–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00014-9. Cross-Referenced Sources Source 1: Hall, Alice. “Why Does Everyone on TikTok Use the Same Weird Voice?” Vice, 29 Mar. 2023, www.vice.com/en/article/k7zq49/why-everyone-uses-tiktok-voice. Source 2: Rifkin, Jacqueline, et al. “Research Identifies Why People Prefer Spontaneity in Entertainment.” Phys.org, phys.org/news/2023-06-people-spontaneity.html. Source 3: Smith Galer, Sophia. “How TikTok Created a New Accent – and Why It Might Be the Future of English.” Www.bbc.com, 23 Jan. 2024, www.bbc.com/future/article/20240123-what-tiktok-voice-sounds-like-internet-influencer.
