Meet the Toronto stars of TikTok, Gen Z´s new social media obsession
(The Star Business)

Samantha and Madeleine Caleon haven’t had formal lessons in singing or dancing, but that hasn’t stopped them from building a fanbase of millions who adore them for both.The 22-year-old Toronto twins choreograph and post roughly 10-second clips of them grooving and lip syncing every week on TikTok – an app turning locals into stars as it becomes the talk of Generation Z and a challenge for parents just trying to keep up with whatever newfangled social media their kids are on. Karaoke-style videos like the Caleons’ made the app famous in China just after it was founded by Beijing tech company ByteDance in 2016, but its August 2018 merger with similar social media platform Musical.ly catapulted it to success in North America and caught the eye of the GTA’s Gen Z (those born in the late 1990s).“We decided to check it out and do it for fun, but we had no idea it would become what it is today,� Samantha told the Star of how her sister cajoled her into trying Musical.ly together in 2016.“I noticed it was more younger, more elementary-age kids, but now I see anywhere from high school age to adults using the app. There has been a large growth over the last few months.�The women were on YouTube first, but only reached 300,000 subscribers on the platform – a fraction of the 3.3 million they have on TikTok.While the platform has grown so has its content. Now many are using it for mukbang videos – footage of people binge eating – and “cringe� clips, where people do embarrassing things on camera. Also a TikTok hit: challenges. Some launched by late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon ask audiences to post videos of them rolling around on the floor like a tumbleweed or trying to flip and catch a Sharpie marker with the same hand, uncap it and draw a moustache on their face in as little time as possible.Several Canadians have used such challenges to catch the eye of sponsors willing to pad their p ...