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Ever wish you could take a TikTok master class to learn how to craft more engaging, entertaining videos from a pro?
Thanks to Dave Jorgenson, the guy who launched the Washington Post's TikTok account in 2019, you can. Well, sort of.
Over the years Jorgenson has used TikTok to make headlines more digestible, draw younger readers to the Post, and bring some much-needed levity to online news consumption. Hundreds of videos and more than 900,000 followers later, he's written a book to encourage others to adopt his daily TikTok method.
Jorgenson's book, Make a TikTok Every Day, is essentially a master class in literary form. The book includes 365 prompts for making attention-grabbing TikToks, features interviews with popular TikTokkers, and offers a look at Jorgenson's own creative process. The pages are filled with inspiration, advice, and technique tutorials that can help aspiring TikTokkers make quality content.
Image: mashable composite: dk publishing / penguin random house
Making a TikTok every day might sound like a big commitment, but Jorgenson's prompts break things down for you.
He shared tips for making original TikToks, music-related TikToks, Alt TikTok videos, and history TikToks. He penned prompts to help you create health and beauty TikToks, food TikToks, 60-second videos, wholesome content, and animal videos. And he even explored more complex genres like explainer TikToks, political TikToks, and videos that make use of crafty visual effects. (The book also features screenshots of actual TikToks, which is just hilarious to see in print.)
An interview between Jorgenson and popular TikTokkers — including @lozclaws, @thisiscory, and @the.mcfarlands — kicks off each chapter to offer more diverse stories and insight. But Jorgenson's prompts alone could squash your creative block and kick your creativity into overdrive.
Some of the prompts are encouragingly simple, like #BubbleWrapped, where he challenges you to "Walk on bubble wrap. Wear bubble wrap. Make a bubble wrap suit if it pleases you." Others, however, like #TrafficStopForArt — a minute-long video prompt that dares you to find a 60-second crosswalk stop, set up an easel and blank canvas, paint a picture of one of the cars that's waiting at the stoplight, and hand the painting to the driver when the 60 seconds are up — may seem so ambitious that you never actually want to try them. Maybe you will, though. And if not, it's still nice to dream.
The prompts call for varying degrees of expertise, time, seriousness, and props. You can use them as a blueprint and set out to conquer all 365, or you can take your own creative liberties and go rogue. Jorgenson's suggestions can help you think outside the box, figure out your personal niche, and spark your own original ideas. Whether you aim to create viral TikToks or simply adore watching them, you'll appreciate this peek into Jorgenson's sharp, beautifully unhinged mind, which is so clearly overflowing with ideas.
About halfway through this book I took a beat because I noticed I had "Pure Imagination" — that song from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory — inexplicably stuck in my head. I'd spent all week listening to Olivia Rodrigo and Bo Burnham songs on repeat, yet here I was, singing a verse from a 1971 musical film I haven't watched in years.
On page 67, Jorgenson referenced Willy Wonka in a food TikTok prompt, which likely triggered me. But when I reflected on the lyrics to "Pure Imagination" I thought, "Oh, that's Dave. This whole book is essentially him singing, 'Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination. Take a look and you'll see into your imagination. We'll begin with a spin, traveling in the world of my creation. What we'll see will defy explanation.'"
TikTok is Dave Jorgenson's chocolate factory, and these pages are the golden tickets that let us see his mind at work.
TikTok is Dave Jorgenson's chocolate factory, and these pages are the golden tickets that let us see his mind at work.
I've never personally made a TikTok and have no plans to do so in the near future, but I still enjoyed reading the book because it challenges content creators and consumers to rethink what makes a good TikTok. Jorgenson highlights how the platform celebrates mundane life events, a lack of talent, simplicity, and imperfection — things that so often fly under the radar online. You don't have to be amazing at any one skill to succeed on TikTok, you just have be brave enough to trust yourself, put your ideas out there, and tell a story.
Make a TikTok Every Day is a light, fun read that will encourage people to take risks and embrace their weirdest, truest selves on the platform.
As Jorgenson says: "Life is short and so are TikToks, so what are you waiting for?"
Make a TikTok Every Day is now available for purchase.
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