High schoolers are testing out their social media marketing skills with a new side gig: TikTok Shop. Teens on the app are bringing in millions of views using the new feature, despite the fact that TikTok forbids minors from applying to the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NBC News identified six TikTok accounts that have published dozens of TikTok Shop videos over the past two weeks. The creators all identified publicly as under the age of 18. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement responding to questions about the presence of teens on TikTok Shop, a TikTok representative said, \u201cAs TikTok Shop rolls out in the US, we continue to evolve our safeguards and are taking steps to address this issue.\u201d TikTok asks users for their age when signing up for an account, which offers a loophole \u2014 kids can pretend to be older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The findings are the latest demonstration of how users are quickly taking advantage of the relatively new TikTok Shop functionality to make money. The feature, launched in September, has rapidly gained popularity and TikTok has appeared to struggle to moderate how people are using it. It also demonstrates the rapid influence that TikTok Shop\u2019s new system, which encourages the fast production of internet advertising by creators, is having on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the creators, who said on his profile (which had over 33,000 followers) that he was 16, made a TikTok Shop advertisement for $4 women\u2019s leggings that said the wearer \u201cmay get pregnant\u201d \u2014 a joke about how good the wearer would look in the leggings. In the video, the teen danced to \u201cBillie Jean\u201d (in which Michael Jackson sings, \u201cBut the kid is not my son … \u201d). Another video the same teen made advertising the leggings, in which he imagined a \u201c10\/10 baddie\u201d wearing them, has over 1.1 million views. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the two weeks since its debut, TikTok Shop has made major waves in the social media advertising scene, with the app becoming a conduit for a new type of commission-based marketing. With TikTok Shop, users can advertise nearly any product available through the app and get a cut of the sale. The company also makes it easy for large and small retailers to sell their goods via the shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TikTok Shop videos are served to TikTok users via the same algorithm that determines the \u201cFor You\u201d page, which means that videos that quickly get engagement will often be pushed out to even bigger viewership almost instantly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has resulted in a near-endless stream of TikTok Shop videos marketing all kinds of products, including dubious health supplements<\/a> and too-good-to-be-true gadgets<\/a>. Some TikTok Shop videos feature clips copied from content like podcasts that the creator uses to advertise an unrelated product. In that case, the creator isn\u2019t affiliated with either the content or the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of the creators using TikTok Shop are adults, and typically they either make the product they\u2019re advertising, are sponsored by the company whose products they\u2019re advertising, or they order the products to test them before advertising them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some teens appear to have jumped onboard as well, posting videos that look like they\u2019re shot in high schools with backgrounds showing lockers, desks and hallways. Some are even recorded during class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the TikTok Shop creators don\u2019t appear to be using or buying the products they\u2019re marketing. Some are just putting text over a simple background with a plea to purchase the product, sometimes even making a series of videos with slight differences advertising a product over and over again \u2014 dozens or even hundreds of times \u2014 trying to get an algorithmic win on at least one video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The TikTok Shop feature is not supposed to be used by minors, but the voluntary age submission process has allowed teen users to slip through the cracks. While TikTok requires people selling their own products to provide<\/a> TikTok with a form of government-issued ID, creators who are just advertising other people\u2019s products don\u2019t have to prove their age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the TikTok Shop Content Policy<\/a>, \u201cCreators are prohibited from uploading, posting, streaming, or sharing any content that targets minors,\u201d including content trying to persuade minors to buy products or services or content to try to get minors to persuade their parents to buy them products or services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the merchandise being sold on TikTok Shop comes from China, even though it is being sold by many creators in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same teen made a video advertising a studded $10 belt with the caption: \u201cImagine your parents this belt just whoop you.\u201d That video has over 1.2 million views. The teen made all three videos in the same day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The leggings the teen advertised are from a brand listed on TikTok Shop as Ying Fu Apparel, based in Zhejiang, China. The belt was from a brand called \u201cHeartinBelt\u201d that is also based in Zhejiang. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some teens making TikTok Shop videos are actually trying the products that they\u2019re advertising. One girl who said she was 15 made a TikTok Shop video lip-syncing to the song \u201cCreep\u201d by Radiohead. She advertised the Radiohead T-shirt she was wearing in the video, which she wrote was \u201ccute af\u201d and \u201conly costed me like $1.27.\u201d Her video was viewed 2.8 million times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The shirt, which currently costs $13.99 to $58.99 on TikTok Shop, is being sold on the platform by an individual based in Missouri whose products include a lot of music merchandise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TikTok Shop has been compared to Chinese fast-fashion giants like Shein and Temu, but executives at the company have reportedly said they view TikTok Shop more like Amazon.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In some ways, TikTok Shop has emerged as a new concept altogether \u2014 not fast-fashion production, but fast-advertising production. It\u2019s a no-holds-barred approach to affiliate marketing, a type of influencer brand marketing popularized by<\/a> early-to-mid 2000s bloggers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Affiliate marketing is when a company like Shein contracts an influencer to create content marketing their clothes. Often, that influencer is provided with an \u201caffiliate code,\u201d which shoppers can use like a discount code. Because the influencer is an affiliate, they receive a cut of the proceeds from purchases made with their code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n TikTok Shop streamlines this concept so that companies don\u2019t need influencer marketing employees and creators don\u2019t need to be influencers. Anyone with at least 5,000 TikTok followers can begin making affiliate content for TikTok Shop \u2014 although NBC News spotted accounts with fewer followers making TikTok Shop content, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to TikTok\u2019s rules, users must be 18 and provide valid tax and banking information to enroll in TikTok Shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n