SciComm Summer #12: Steve Rathje - Social Science on TikTok

Steve Rathje has managed to rack up more than a million followers on TikTok (@stevepsychology) while pursuing a PhD in social psychology (and doing some very cool research). He shares quick videos about key insights from psychological science that are reaching an entirely new audience. In our conversation, he fills me in on the finer points of TikTok as a platform, why it's uniquely suited to science communication, and how Steve approaches each video to bring insights from social science to a largely untapped audience. 

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:09):
Hey everyone, welcome back to Hot SciComm
Summer, a special summer podcastseries featuring conversations
with folks who are talentedscience communicators across a
range of media and environments.
We've heard from YouTube videomakers, podcast producers,
public radio hosts, bookauthors, consultants, government
liaisons, article writers, butthe media landscape is

(00:30):
ever-evolving.
And you can bet thatenterprising science
communicators will figure outhow to leverage new platforms as
a way to bring science of theworld.
That's why I was excited to talkwith Steve Rathjay.
He's a PhD student in psychologyat the University of Cambridge,
and he's done some coolresearch.
So one day I was on his websitelooking to pull up a paper or

(00:51):
something, and I see at thebottom of the page this little
note that just says, he alsomakes science communication
TikToks under the name at StevePsychology.
So I decided to check it out andwatch some of his quick videos
on classic psychology studies.
And then I see that this guy hasgot more than a million
followers on TikTok.
I had heard that there was somecool science communication work

(01:13):
happening on TikTok, but I wasnever all that checked into it.
So I decided it would be reallygreat to talk with Steve to get
his take on the pros and cons ofTikTok and how he approaches
making these videos.
I'll admit some of theconversation is Steve explaining
TikTok to me, but I don't thinkI'm the only one who needs that
explainer.
But most of our conversation isgetting to the bottom of what

(01:33):
works and doesn't work on TikTokand why it's actually a really
important opportunity to reachan audience who might otherwise
have no exposure to sound socialscience.
So let's get to it.

(01:54):
Yeah, I don't I don't know.
Well, I'll get your take on it,too, because you're as a person
who's a student now.
Right.
There's a question of like, isthis a way a good way to spend
your time?
And that's probably a questionyou've had to ask yourself.

SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
It's yeah.
I've also been like consideringgoing down the podcast route as
well.
So that's something I'minterested in, too.
But it's something I feel likethat takes a lot of like action
energy to start.
So like I admire you for like,you know, being so like doing so
many podcasts and devoting somuch time to it and like being
so consistent as well like

SPEAKER_02 (02:29):
yeah there's different yeah it's like a
totally it has to be a totallydifferent beast than the
relatively quick videos rightthere's this huge continuum and
again part of what my goal isespecially in getting you your
voice in this is to really sortof say like Right, right.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (03:02):
Yeah, and what I like about TikToks is it's been,
like, a very easy habit to keepup.
Like, a podcast, you have to do,like, you know, you have to
write emails to people.
You have to do, like, an hourconversation.
You have to edit.
Like, I'm sure that takes a lotof time.
A podcast, like, a TikTok issomething I can do and maybe,
depending on, like, how mucheffort that one TikTok is, I

(03:23):
can, like, film it in 30 minutesor less.
And then I can edit it withinthe app.
in like 30 minutes or less and Ican post it.
So it's something I can likeusually always find the time to
do.
It's a bit like, I feel likeit's a bit like tweeting, like
being like an active tweeter,except instead of writing
something, you are making avideo.

(03:45):
And I mean, I'm on scienceTwitter and I follow a lot of
people who do a lot of goodscience communication and who
will condense science reallywell in tweets.
That's what I wanted to do forTikTok.
I wanted to do these very quickvideos.
I also never wanted to investtoo much production energy into

(04:07):
making it perfect.
not too much scripting sort oflike describing a study off the
cuff i might you know film a fewtakes of it but like i wanted it
to be something that you couldsort of do a bit off the cuff
and a lot of the style of ticktock in general the app is sort
of informal people talking tothe camera things that aren't

(04:29):
like is staged or posed as likeinstagram or youtube so i wanted
to sort of keep with that styleboth like as a stylistic thing
and just So I can maintain thehabit of doing TikToks.

SPEAKER_02 (04:42):
So do you think it would be weird if it was overly
scripted and produced?
Like, do you think peoplewouldn't respond to it because
it wouldn't be, it wouldn't seemauthentic in the same TikTok
way?
I

SPEAKER_00 (04:53):
think it, uh, it depends.
I mean, people have lots ofdifferent approaches on TikTok.
This has sort of just been myapproach.
There have been people who makeTikToks and external editing
apps, and they do lots of likevisual effects that are like
very, very impressive.
and make it more like aYouTube-style video.
And they do a very good job, andsome of them have done really
well.
Also, a lot of people have had alot of good camera work and

(05:17):
lighting and have really nicebackgrounds.
And that's something I want todo more in the future.
Right now, I've been moving somuch that I'm like, OK, plain
white background.
I have a ring light.
Lighting is really important.
I always have a ring light ortwo ring lights, sometimes an
extra lamp, because having a lotof lighting coming in is good.
And I think that's something theTikTok algorithm pays attention

(05:40):
to.
It's a bit unproven, but likehaving good lighting, having
good camera quality, I think issomething that will keep people
sort of watching the video.
But yeah, and I mean, anotherthing I've also just tried to do
with TikTok is consistency.
A lot of people on TikTokemphasize, and again, this is
sort of more unproven advice,but a lot of people emphasize

(06:03):
the importance of sort of havingconsistency a niche and having
sort of a consistent style.
And if you tell people to followyour videos, having people sort
of know what they're gettinginto.
So I, yeah, I mean, I starteddoing like science videos on
this account about a year agoand I have not really changed my

(06:24):
style very much.
It's me describing studies and,um, Yeah, and I think if I
started talking about somethingthat wasn't psychology all of a
sudden, or if I started doingmemes or political takes, people
might get confused and unfollow.
So that's one thing I'vedeveloped as well, sort of doing
a niche, doing somethingconsistent.
And I'm sure that's somethingyou think of too with your

(06:47):
podcast as well.

SPEAKER_02 (06:48):
So it occurs to me that it might actually make
sense.
And this is also just because myperspective is of someone who is
familiar with the fact thatTikTok exists in the world that
we live in, but not likeoverly...
Like I have definitely...
It's on my phone.

SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
Okay, so you have an

SPEAKER_02 (07:08):
account.
I have an account.
And I did so because I heardthere are folks doing science
communication on TikTok.
So I thought, okay, I'll checkthis out.
And then I sort of...
Then I read this other articlethat was like how creepy the
algorithm is that it so quicklyjust...
finds what you like.

SPEAKER_00 (07:24):
It's very creepy, yeah.
And so I've definitely spent

SPEAKER_02 (07:28):
a couple days being like, all right, I want to teach
this app what I like, but Inever quite got past that I went
okay I'm seeing some stuff butso I've mostly abandoned TikTok
as like a habit of watching itwhich means I don't really know
a lot of the like things thatmake TikTok TikTok so for me and

(07:50):
for others who maybe have evenless familiarity with what it is
could you even just likedescribe like what TikTok is
because it's like fairly new inthe media ecosystem um so what
is it what

SPEAKER_00 (08:02):
are we talking about yeah it's fairly new I'm
surprised how there's this likegap where like some people don't
know about TikTok at all or theystill think it's just like a
dance app or like a lip syncingapp and they don't know that
other content exists on it.
And then there are other peoplewho are spending, you know, four
or five hours a day on TikTokand are really hooked on the
TikTok habit.

(08:23):
And I mean, I consider myselfone of those people who is
hooked on TikTok.
I might not spend that muchtime, but it's my most used
social media.
I used to use Twitter a lot for,you know, consuming a lot of
like science news, academicTwitter and everything.
And I use TikTok more now.
And it's precisely because ofsome of these features of the
TikTok algorithm and everything.

(08:44):
So basically, for those whodon't know what TikTok's like,
once you install TikTok, it willjust start showing you videos.
And it will usually startshowing you sort of the most
viral videos on the app.
So these might be like prankvideos or dance videos.
And usually like when you firstinstall TikTok, you're like,

(09:08):
what am I seeing?
Like this is, I don't reallylike this at all.
This is like a bit confusing.
And I sort of, this is wheresome people will leave the app
because they don't really getit.
They're just being shown thesevideos and they're scrolling
through and they're like, what?
But usually once you startfollowing a few people or even

(09:29):
TikTok also pays close attentionto your watch time.
So if you start lingering onvideos a bit more, TikTok will
start to understand what kind ofvideos you like to consume.
And people have variedexperience in this.
I had an old TikTok accountbefore I had this current one
where I didn't follow as manyscience creators.

(09:51):
So my algorithm on that one wasnot as optimized to my tastes.
But once I created this newaccount and started following
science creators, my algorithmis really good now.
It is definitely optimized tothe kind of stuff I like.
And yeah, I mean, there arecreepy stories about the

(10:11):
algorithm.
People definitely, like, somepeople do get sent down
conspiratorial rabbit holes, noteven because they're, like,
conspiracy theorists, butbecause they find themselves
sort of lingering on thatcontent.
They're like, why am I beingshown this?
And then TikTok will payattention to your watch time and
show you more.
So there are certainly, like, alot of, like, weird stories

(10:33):
about the TikTok algorithm.
And I think TikTok...
As someone who researches socialmedia, I think it's completely
unexplored in terms of socialmedia research.
I feel like there needs to be somuch research exploring the
TikTok app, especially sincestats are showing that the
amount of time people arespending on TikTok is now

(10:55):
exceeding the amount of timepeople are spending on YouTube.
It's crazy.
The growth we've seen on TikTokhas been huge.
I think a huge part of this isthe fact that the TikTok
algorithm is just so optimizedfor you.
And one thing that's differentabout it than YouTube is YouTube
will show you all thesethumbnails and you'll be like,

(11:17):
oh, I want to watch this video.
This looks good.
TikTok gets rid of that step andit will just show you a video
automatically.
So I think that really leads toits addicting potential just
because you're like, okay, whatdoes it have in store for me
next?
You don't have to even make thischoice.
Also, short form video.

(11:37):
So videos that are, I mean, allTikToks used to be under one
minute in the past, they can nowbe up to three minutes.
I think that also just makes itlike really addicting.
So you can like just scroll tothe next video, and it will be
short.
And that gives you sort of thatlike mindset of like, I'll just
watch one more video.
So yeah.
Yeah, that's my brief summary ofTikTok.

SPEAKER_02 (11:59):
Yeah, that is useful.
I think the thing that made mejump ship was the lack of
control.
Like, I kind of didn't like thatthe bus was being driven by an
autopilot.
Like, I like YouTube because Igo, I'll make my little playlist
for the 20 minutes I have andI'll curate the content I want
to watch.
Whereas this is just like, Idon't know what it's going to
show me and like, I just, Idon't, I don't like handing the

(12:21):
keys over in that way, but I doget why it's addictive in a lot
of ways.
Right.
And why, why people would climbonto it.
And the other thing that's funnyis that that are all, all the
videos are vertical videos.
oriented

SPEAKER_00 (12:35):
yeah all sort of filmed on a phone yeah

SPEAKER_02 (12:38):
built to watch on a phone and that's the other thing
my wife makes fun of me for idon't think i've been to
instagram on my phone ever i'llgo i'll log on to instagram.com
and she goes what are you doingwow nobody goes to the website
and the same thing when i waspulling up your stuff i was on
the tiktok.com uh and oh i seeokay and that's like mostly how
i will find stuff but that ilike because i go oh I can

(13:00):
easily see all the things thatthis one person made and I can,
I can click and choose from it.

SPEAKER_00 (13:05):
But it's so much worse on tiktok.com.
Like you don't have that feedand like, yeah.
So, so I, I recommend you maybegive it another try.
And there are ways that you cansort of take ownership of the
algorithm or you can, there's abutton where you can press
saying like, stop showing mevideos like this, or I don't
like this video.
Also, if you just likestrategically follow the right

(13:26):
people, that will help.
The fact that I like follow asmany professors and PhD students
as I can and sciencecommunicators helps.
Like TikTok has learned what Ilike.
And my algorithm is, you know,it's not very toxic.
It's sort of optimized to me.
And plenty of people have worsealgorithms.
But if you're sort of lucky tosort of take control of your

(13:46):
algorithm and get a good one,then TikTok can be like a really
great great experience.

SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Okay.
So in this bizarre and, uh,unfamiliar, uh, media platform,
why, like, why does this seemlike a place to talk about
psychology to people who don'talready know about it?
Like what makes this a goodscience communication platform?

SPEAKER_00 (14:10):
Yeah.
Um, I think, well, the sheerfact that there are so many
users on Tik TOK and, um, Also,the fact that so few people are
doing science and especiallypsychology communication.
So I sort of joined this appback in 2020, very early 2020.

(14:31):
And I used it for about like sixmonths before I really got built
my science communicationaccount.
And one thing i noticed when ifirst started looking at the
psychology content on the appwas just how bad it was like if
anyone like so for instance ifyou go to tick tock and you look

(14:53):
at hashtag psychology uh whatyou will mostly see is just
misinformation you will see allthese like fake psychology facts
you will see a lot of these umaccounts where people are saying
like psychology fact, if someonelooks at you and they laugh, it
means they're in love with you,just like these like random
quotes.
And sort of that like was thepsychology content back in 2020.

(15:20):
So I, but I was inspired by likea few accounts that were doing
like a really good job atscience communication on the
app.
So sort of back before Istarted, there were some
accounts like there was a womannamed Dr.
Julie, who is a psychiatrist whodid mental health content.
And she's now at like 3 millionfollowers and has a book.

(15:42):
So she's been doing really wellon TikTok.
And she did legit content.
A few other creators as well.
Like there's a professor namedDr.
Ina, who was doing some goodcontent.
Tall Psychology, Danny's Brain,these are all TikTok handles I'm
giving you right now.
People who were starting to dosome good science content.

(16:03):
There were also a lot of doctorsand COVID communicators on the
app who were doing a really goodjob at getting reliable
information about COVID and thevaccine, especially in the face
of some disinformation problemson the TikTok app.
And there are definitelydisinformation problems on that
app.
So, um, yeah, I was inspired bysome, um, basically some of

(16:27):
those folks on TikTok and, butit wasn't until like I started
until I, like I gave sciencecommunication a try that I
realized that there was a demandfor this.
Um, so basically I had thisother TikTok account, um, And
then I decided to create a newaccount where I would focus on
science communication.
And on one, just like randomSunday afternoon, I made three

(16:52):
psychology TikToks where Idescribed like psychology
studies that I was familiar withand that I thought were very
cool.
And, you know, I had like zerofollowers and everything, but I
just like, I put these out intothe algorithm to see like, how
they would do.
And at first it seemed like noneof them were like doing well.
So I was like, okay, maybe thisis like kind of hard.

(17:14):
And then like, I, I went to bedthat night and, um, like I woke
up the next day and, uh, one ofthose three tech talks, uh,
started doing really well.
It went, um, you know, semiviral.
I think it has like a hundredthousand views now.
And, uh, you know, at the timethat was like, wow, a lot of
people are seeing and engagingwith this content.

(17:35):
I got like a few thousandfollowers.
And I was like, okay, maybethere is a demand for this.
And I sort of responded to thatdemand a bit.
And I think another reason whyTikTok is a good place for
science communication that isunexplored is there are a lot of
young people on the app.
So you know, a lot of peoplewill sort of say that TikTok is

(17:59):
like a Gen Z app.
And if you look at stats, youknow, it has a lot of teenagers,
it has a lot of people in their20s.
It definitely has a lot of olderpeople as well.
So it's not just a Gen Z app.
But I'm kind of thinking back tomyself back when I was like a
teenager, or when I went tocollege, and I was first exposed
to psychology content.

(18:21):
And I was really inspired bysome of these big science
communicators who wrote books.
I was super influenced by myfirst Psychology 1 class when I
went to undergrad.
And that like inspired me tosort of get into this whole
field of psychology.
And I think what's excitingabout TikTok is you're actually
reaching a lot of people whohave like never been exposed to

(18:43):
psychology research like intheir life.
Like they're completely new topsychology research And when I'm
on Twitter, I'm in a bubble ofacademics and people who are all
knowledgeable about this.
But there's something reallyexciting about TikTok, how
people can get super excitedabout basic psychology concepts
that we learned in our educationwhen we were very young.

(19:05):
And then that gets me excitedabout like psychology again,
seeing all these other peopleget excited about psychology.
Um, so yeah, it's just a totallydifferent audience than like
what I'm used to when I'm likesort of in the bubble of the
university or the bubble ofTwitter, you are able to reach
all these people like across theworld who have never seen
psychology content before.

SPEAKER_02 (19:26):
Yeah.
The fact is, In some ways,that's a strength of the fact
that TikTok just shows youstuff, right?
Because if you're on YouTube,you'd go, I never, all I know
about psychology is there's thistest that tells you what color
personality you are.
You go, so I'm not going to, Idon't really care about that.
I'm not going to look up videosabout it.
But if TikTok's like, hey, Idon't know, like you're
interested in stuff.
This guy said some stuff.

(19:46):
You're interested in this.
You go, oh, wait a second.
I had never thought that likeyou could understand like how
people do these things in groupsin a scientific way.
Right.
And yeah, especially for likeyounger folks or folks who just
really have never had any reasonto think about psychology as a
science or social science ingeneral.
Yeah, that's sort of just kindof putting it out there.

(20:08):
Right.
In terms of reach, you know, youthink about like you get a
podcast, right?
Like no one's just like random.
No one's thrown on the radio andhearing my podcast.
It's not just like you have toseek it out.
And that's the trouble withbreaking through in an
established medium, right?
where people have to find you.
Whereas TikTok seems interestingbecause it's just sort of like
no real competition.

(20:29):
You're just throwing stuff outthere and it's hitting people's
eyeballs and it just snowballsfrom there, it seems.

SPEAKER_00 (20:34):
It's crazy.
Yeah, there's this term, peoplecall it like organic reach or
whatever.
It's sort of like when you'resort of on a social network like
YouTube or Twitter, how...
easy without spending marketingdollars or all these things to
get people to see your content.
And it's really hard nowadays tostart a YouTube channel, to
start a podcast.
It's super hard to get followerson Twitter.

(20:57):
TikTok, if you get a video withhigh watch time that captures
people's attention, it can blowup.
It can get 6 million plus viewsand you can get hundreds of
thousands of followers.
overnight.
And some of that is like luck.

(21:18):
You're able to strike whateverthe algorithm thinks is good for
the moment.
And it's really hard to predictwhat will go viral.
But yeah, just the reach of myaccount within the year has been
very surprising.
My account, it was hovering at40,000 followers for a lot of

(21:41):
2020.
And very suddenly, in a month orso, it went up to a million.
And that was just because I madea few videos that for some
reason people and the algorithmreally liked.
And I didn't really even expectthat.
And I think the fact that TikTokis also a very...

(22:01):
is still a young platform it iseasier to get this this reach
it's a little bit like whathappened in the early days of um
youtube uh youtube sort of hadlike a first movers advantage
like a lot of people who startedyoutube channels like i'm
thinking like hank green or johngreen some of these folks they
had like a big advantage interms of uh You know, they are

(22:21):
now the big YouTubers todaybecause they were in a platform
early.
And I think TikTok is still inthe stage where it's like an
early enough platform that it'ssort of easier to have growth.
And it will probably be harderto get growth in the next two
years once, you know, TikTokbecomes more established.
But yeah, it's been just reallycool the amount of reach these
videos have been able to get.

SPEAKER_02 (22:43):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about how These numbers
are incredible.
When I saw it, I was like, whoa,that's a huge number of people
who have...
I mean, even if you just thinklike sometimes even just looking
at like the numbers or even thegeography, I don't know if you
get any like stats or like infoon that on the back end.
I

SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
do.
Yeah, I have some info.
Yeah.
I mean...
if you're curious, like half ofmy followers, I think are from
the United States and then theother half are international.
And, but you know, there's ahuge international reach for a
while, like 10% of my followingwas like from the Philippines.
So you sort of, some videos justsort of take off in certain
regions.

(23:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (23:25):
Yeah, it just strikes me as just such an
incredible opportunity to– likeunder what other– you think of
the day-to-day of an academicand you go, no, nothing you
could do in your day would helpyou reach thousands of people on
the other side of the world,hundreds of thousands of people
in different pockets of theworld that you'll never visit,
right?

(23:47):
Yeah.
place.
And so, yeah, so what, what isit like when you're, when you're
making a video, like what isyour goal ultimately, right?
Like there's a version where yougo like, it's just fun and I do
it because it's fun and it's agame and people like it.
Or is there, is there anythingelse to it where you go like,

(24:09):
no, like I keep doing it becauseI think it's worth doing for
some reason.

SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Yeah.
I, so I thought a lot about thisbecause there are like, there
are constraints on how much youcan communicate via a TikTok and
that sort of the TikToks thatwill go, be most successful on
the app tend to be around um 30seconds long uh to 40 seconds um
and i've made plenty of videosthat are like 90 seconds that
communicate something in more indepth but those are harder to go

(24:36):
uh viral so you have all theselike constraints uh by the
algorithm and that you can go ina lot of depth and nuance and i
make a lot of those videos thatgo in depth um but they're you
know they're harder to take offthan the videos that are short
and just very brieflycommunicate a concept.
So I think in terms of like thelimits of what you can
communicate via TikTok, what mymain goal is, is to get people

(25:00):
excited about science andpsychology.
And to get people excited, Ijust like to sort of share, you
know, always accurateinformation because, you know,
I'm a scientist, I valueaccuracy strongly, but things
that can key concepts frompsychology or key studies that

(25:22):
can be communicated veryclearly, that can often be
communicated with visuals,sometimes multimedia.
And to do that, I usually thinkback to the studies that got me
excited about psychology.
I always think back to myundergrad, which was...

(25:42):
had like amazing teachers, like,uh, and I especially think back
to like my psych one class atStanford taught by James Gross,
who was like such an, he wassuch an incredible teacher.
And I'm like, what?
And I later TA to that class.
So then I got some experiencewith teaching and I was thinking
like, what were the studies thatgot me excited about psychology?
And then, um, and yeah, then I,I, I do those.

(26:06):
And I also try to convey a lotof excitement and, in my videos
um i i sort of have a backgroundin theater from when i was young
so like i love theater andpublic speaking as well so i try
to like i try to like be excitedabout what i'm sharing and i try
to get other people excited andi i also like want um yeah i i I

(26:29):
think that's key.
And then secondary is like, youknow, you want to actually
educate people and you want toteach them these key concepts
from psychology.
But when thinking about theconstraints, I think the main
goal is to get people excited.
And then that might lead themto, you know, pursue psychology
more in the future, like as Idid.

SPEAKER_02 (26:48):
Very cool.
Yeah.
So let's get into the nuts andbolts of like beginning to end
psychology.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(27:14):
in an emergency when nobody elseseems to be responding, right?
So very kind of seminal notionof, you know, bystander effects
where people just won't see itin them to get involved if other
people don't seem to be doingso.
So classic study that hasexisted and been talked about
forever.
And so when you approach it inthis medium, can you kind of

(27:37):
walk me through like, okay, I'mgoing to make a TikTok.
This is what I decide to make iton.
Now what happens from thatmoment until the time it goes
live?

SPEAKER_00 (27:48):
Yeah, so I pointed to the smoke-filled room because
that particular TikTok was, Ithink it's my third most watched
video.
So it has like 3.5 million viewsor something.
But it also, it has my highestwatch time.
So people watched it for anaverage of maybe, 40 seconds or
so, and it's over a minute long.

(28:11):
And it's hard to get videos thatare over a minute.
It's hard to get people to watchthem.
So I think there was somethingabout that video that was
compelling to people.
And as you say, this was one ofthe classic conformity
experiments.
So basically, the crux of thestudy, for listeners who don't
know, is Basically, they'd havesomeone wait in a waiting room

(28:37):
along with a bunch of actors orconfederates, and they thought
that the experiment was about tobegin.
But what they didn't know, thisperson in the experiment, is the
experiment has already begun.
And they like have a fog machinein the corner of the room and
the room starts to fill withsmoke.
And all the Confederates oractors are told to just like sit

(29:00):
there and do nothing.
And just to like pretend nothingweird is going on.
And sort of what happened inthis classic experiment is a lot
of people, around 90% of peoplesort of put in the situation,
they conformed and they didn't.
report that the smoke wasfilling the bruma whereas people
in a control condition withoutthese confederates they didn't

(29:21):
conform and they tended toreport the smoke um so yeah that
was the crux of the study that idid for um this particular video
um something i think was thatwas special about this
experiment is um there is sortof a video of it that is sort
of, you know, it's publiclyavailable on YouTube and they

(29:42):
actually like filmed aparticipant in this experiment.
And while I'm talking about thisexperiment, I like show the
video like above me and I show aparticipant sort of sitting
there as the smoke is fillingthe room.
She's looking concerned, butlike all the Confederates are
just doing nothing.
And I think a major reason whythis video did well is just, you

(30:06):
know, the source material isreally good.
This particular video is verycompelling.
And a lot of times when you'reexplaining a psychology
experiment, it's hard for peopleto sort of get the like, 1,000
people were randomly assigned totwo conditions.
People don't really think ingroups like that.
And I mean, psychologists havebeen trained to think of
experimental and controlcondition.

(30:28):
But if you haven't been trainedin science and you don't
intuitively think that way,oftentimes people respond very
well to a single person or asingle story.
And I think the video clip ofthis participant in the
experiment sort of struggling toknow what to do.
I think that was like reallycompelling for people.

(30:50):
So the fact that I wasexplaining the study while also
showing a video was I think onereason it went viral.
And also something, if you sortof like look back at my various
TikToks, if things have avisual, either like a picture or
a graph, or something like that,or a video, they do better than
when I'm just talking on my own.

(31:11):
Because TikTok, it's a videoplatform.
It's a multimedia platform.
The more stuff people have towatch, the better.
So I think this video is onereason the TikTok did well.
So another aspect of that TikTokthat I think was successful is
the hook.

(31:31):
So every video I do, I try tohave a good hook because The key
factor for the TikTok algorithmprobably is watch time.
You want to get people to watchthe video.
You want them to stop scrolling.
And you have to like have a hookthat keeps people watching.

(31:53):
I forgot exactly what I said,but I said something like,
here's an example of howconformity can be deadly or how
conformity can be deadly in alife-threatening situation.
And I think people like thatbecause they're like, oh, what
is going to happen next?
If you get people to think like,oh, I want to keep watching
this, so what is going to happennext?

(32:13):
That will keep people watchingand seeing your explanation
because they want to see whatthe payoff of the hook is.
They're like, oh, what is this?
So you have the hook, you haveme explaining the study, and
then you have the visual thatpeople are able to watch.
And yeah, so that was sort ofthe anatomy of that particular

(32:37):
TikTok video.
And I remember before I postedthat video, so it can be really
hard for me to predict what willbe successful by the TikTok
algorithm because I'm so likeclose to the source material and
it's hard for me to like knowwhat people will like.
But I remember when I likeshowed my mom that video and I
was like, oh mom, I'm going topost this video.

(33:00):
What do you think?
She just couldn't stop laughingat the woman at reacting to the
smoke-filled room.
And she had this very visceralreaction to it.
And she was like, I love that.
That's your best TikTok.
And I was like, oh, okay.
And then, I mean, she was right.
Her visceral reaction was right.

(33:22):
And I couldn't quite...
Because I was so close to thatvideo, I couldn't quite realize
that...
this particular study and thisparticular video was very good
at evoking a visceral reaction.
So I think that's probably a keyaspect to virality on the app.
Can you get people to like, canyou evoke that sense of surprise
or awe or humor?

(33:44):
And some of these classicstudies like unconformity do
quite well at this.
And I've done plenty of videoson conformity.
I've done ashes line tests.
I've done some of that stuff.
And people like that.
And people will respond in thecomments always relating it to
real world examples ofconformity.
And yeah, so that's the anatomyof that particular video.

SPEAKER_02 (34:04):
Yeah.
So two things jump out.
One is that, like you said, forsomeone who's in the field,
who's already taken the classes,even taught the classes, you
go...
come on, everyone's heard ofthis, right?
Like everyone's seen this video.
Everyone's seen the three linesand everyone says, oh, one line
is bigger.

SPEAKER_03 (34:20):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (34:20):
But again, to your point that this is an app in
particular, that it's reachingan audience that hasn't gotten
there yet, right?
Like this is the first time,like that's insane.
The first time you're hearingabout this line conformity study
is incredible.
And the other thing that'sinteresting too, is that your
notion of the hook makes methink that on YouTube, The hook

(34:43):
is like the thumbnail and thetitle, right?
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
Whereas this has neither, right?
There's, you just, it starts,right?
I often think that people wouldhave way more eclectic tastes in
movies if they just were playedfor you.
Because too much, we pre-filter.
We go, that's not the kind ofthing I watch.
Oh, I don't know about this.
I don't know about this.

(35:03):
But if I just played it for you,you'd go, oh.
Maybe I love a whole genre thatI never dabbled in before
because I just thought I didn'tlike it.

SPEAKER_00 (35:12):
That's a startup idea right now.
That's like TikTok for movies.
Yeah, you

SPEAKER_02 (35:16):
just spend all day scrolling and then you're stuck
for two hours.
They won't let you pivot untilyou've watched 20 minutes of the
movie.
So if we get even into the like,you know, so this makes sense in
hindsight.
Right.
This was what you hadconstructed.
But when you were in the momentof going, OK, I want to present
this to the world.

(35:37):
What is the process?
Like, are you writing a lot ofthat down first?
Are you outlining or do you justsort of go, let's hit play and
let's see what I remember?

SPEAKER_00 (35:47):
Yeah, I never script my TikToks, partially just
because...
again, it's a habit where I justlike wanna keep producing
TikToks and I don't wanna, like,I'm also writing my thesis and
TikTok is kind of like a way Iprocrastinate too.
It's like, I always think like,oh, I have other things I should
be doing.
So it's partially out of likehabit and it's also out of like,

(36:08):
you know, I wanna get thesevideos done quickly.
But I do usually film in likeshort takes and I'll do like a
sentence or so for each take andI'll film directly in the native
TikTok which is actually likevery good for, um, you can do a
lot of editing and you can docutting, you can do captions.

(36:28):
Like the TikTok native app islike part of like why it's so
innovative is it makes it reallyeasy for anyone to produce like
movies or films, which like backin the day you needed to use
like iMovie or Final Cut Pro todo all these things.
Now you can edit like nativelyin the TikTok app.
So there is like so littleactivation energy to like
actually like just putting yourso I put my phone in my like

(36:52):
ring light or like my and then Iwill just like stand in front of
the screen and um yeah and thenI'll think of like what like
what is the hook what is thenext sentence and usually I like
have like kind of semi scriptedthe video in my head so like
maybe like when i'm in theshower or something i'm like
okay i think i'll say this thisand this and i kind of

(37:13):
brainstorm it in my head andthen i like go in front of the
camera and then i film a coupleof clips and i basically film it
until i'm satisfied with thatparticular clip because i was
playing it with like a videoplaying above me i that was a
bit harder because like i neededto um get everything right for
like a minute of me speaking.

(37:34):
So I remember I filmed quite afew takes of that and that
might've taken like an hour orso for me to like really perfect
like speaking for about aminute.
But usually if like I don't havea video playing, I'm just able
to film various takes of mespeaking.
And sometimes like I'll have toreshoot it because I'm like, oh,
what I said at the beginningwasn't very good.

(37:54):
But yeah, TikTok also sort ofhas ways of you like selecting a
particular clip and refilmingit.
So yeah, often just because ofthe TikTok edit function, you
don't have to script.
And I don't know, I kind of justlike the spontaneity of me
saying things off the cuff.
So yeah, that's usually how I doit.
I often film, once you're likein the mood to film, you're

(38:18):
like, oh, maybe let me film likethree or four or five in a row.
Like sometimes you'll want tolike bulk film because...
It can take a while to getyourself psyched up for filming.
But once you're psyched up,you're like, oh, I want to do
this study or this study.
And yeah, and then you have toedit a bit.
You have to edit the captionsand everything.
You sometimes add text labelswithin the TikTok app.

(38:40):
I've kind of refused to do muchmore advanced editing because I
really don't want these extrasteps.
And I wanted to sort of keep itspontaneous, me sharing my
studies and make it primarilyjust about me talking and sort
of sharing what i'm excitedabout

SPEAKER_02 (38:56):
so having done so they're impromptu in that you're
sort of uh discovering it as yougo right and then you sort of
lock in to the like okay this isthe one um and that's been sort
of the process from thebeginning

SPEAKER_00 (39:10):
yeah that was the process from the beginning and i
haven't really changed like myprocess for um a year,
basically.
Yeah, those first three videos Ifilmed on the first day, they
were very impromptu.
But yeah, there have been a fewthings I've changed over time in
response to just learning whatpeople like or learning what the

(39:31):
algorithm likes.
I changed some of the topicsthat I focus on.
People aren't interested in someof my main interests, which are
social media and political psychand misinformation.
People instead, they're moreinterested in conformity.
They're interested indevelopmental psychic.
People love anything with likebabies or things like that.
Yeah, and just like other topicslike narcissism or

(39:54):
relationships, things that likeI might not be like as focused
on, but are just like generaltopics that I've learned to
explore.
I've also learned as a result ofthe TikTok algorithm to, I think
I speak faster now than Ioriginally did because again,
you want people to keepwatching.
And oftentimes, like people whenthey're watching YouTube or

(40:16):
something, they watch in doublespeed or they watch in 1.5
speed.
I listen to podcasts usually at1.5 speed.
So like if you talk like reallyfast, people will be able to
read the captions and understandit.
And that's like one thing to getpeople to keep watching.
You talk fast.
I think I've like tried to getmore enthusiastic as I've gone

(40:37):
along or more like excited aboutmy um my stuff because i but
because again i think like ifyou are excited about it and um
i mean the excitement is genuinei'm not like faking it but like
you learn to like be once youlearn to be like more expressive
about your excitement i thinkthat is something that people

(40:57):
they feel through the screen andit leads them to be more excited
and then i've also learned tomake like more visual videos in
response to um algorithm andeverything to optimize the hook
because the hook is likeabsolutely most important um
yeah i think that that is it iwas gonna say one more thing but
i forgot

SPEAKER_02 (41:18):
yeah you you hopped right on to where i was going
which is like what have youlearned along the way that that
has affected the process rightlike so presumably you've gotten
more efficient over time you'vezeroed in on how it works um so
these are useful insights and iimagine like you said you're
sort of checked into thecommunity on TikTok of folks who

(41:38):
do similar kinds of things.
Are there, without throwinganyone out of the bus, of
course, are there things thatever stand out to you as like, I
see people try to do this orapproach it this way, but it's
not working?
Like, yeah, are there ways inwhich you're seeing people
approach TikTok in ways thatdon't seem optimal?

(42:00):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
yeah i mean a lot of things of course but um yeah i i
okay i think one thing i'vealong the way i've sort of
encouraged like you know a fewother people to to join tick
tock and things and i think onething people can like get
discouraged about easily thetick tock algorithm is like

(42:21):
brutal it's just completelybrutal and most of my videos
don't succeed and because i havelike a million followers now
every video gets like a baselineamount of views.
Like they'll get tens ofthousands of views, even if it's
a bad video.
But the TikTok algorithm isbinary.
It's like you either get like avideo either goes like viral and

(42:43):
it gets like a million plus, atleast on my page, or it, you
know, gets like this baselinelevel of like 40,000 views or
something.
So I think a lot of like, Ithink for a lot of creators on
the app, it can be difficult todeal with that feedback.

(43:03):
And I think people will give upearly on because they'll try a
few videos and they might not dowell.
And then they'll give up.
And I was lucky in that of thefirst three videos I did, two
didn't succeed and one did.
And who knows if I'd still bemaking videos if that one video
didn't.
succeed.

(43:23):
And I mean, yeah, the TikTokalgorithm is brutal because
like, even if you're doingreally good work, even if it's
really interesting, it all justcomes down to this like metric
of like what people are watchingand what people are liking,
which is like brutal feedback.
So yeah, I guess one thing tokeep in mind is like, yeah, you,
you can't take that likefeedback seriously.

(43:45):
I mean, you can take itseriously and that you can learn
from it, but like, you have tokind of start viewing TikTok as
like very unimportant and notthinking about that stuff
because it can be really easy tolike view that as like a kind of
like rejection and everything.
Another thing, it's kind ofimpossible a priori to predict

(44:06):
what will like go viral.
So yeah, you have to trydifferent things and you have to
like pay attention to what thealgorithm likes.
But I feel like the correlationbetween what I predict will go
viral and what actually goesviral, I think it might be
there, but it might be around0.1 or something.
It's a very weak correlation,maybe marginally significant or

(44:30):
something.
Yeah, so that's another thing.
And then in terms of techniquesand tactics that people do that
don't work, one, and this ismostly for science
communication, like I think mynumber one thing might be like,
you're not being like conciseenough.
And when I'm filming, I willlike always sort of like, I will

(44:51):
phrase something in aunnecessarily complicated way.
And then I'll be like, wait, Ineed to reshoot that.
I can just say this.
And you don't have to describeeverything about the paper.
You don't have to say like thismany people were randomly
assigned and this and this.
And as scientists, we are verydetail focused and we might want
to focus on the main details.
But when you have this app thathas these constraints, you have

(45:14):
to fit very creatively in theconstraints and you have to be
like, okay, I'm going to haveaccurate information.
But what is the key point ofthis app?
study?
What is the key figure?
And even if I won't explainanything, what is something I
want to reach people with and Iwant to get across?
And I think people shouldoptimize if they're making

(45:34):
TikToks for around 30 secondsfor science communication.
it can often be hard to do undera minute or something.
But if you're able to likereally describe something well
in under 30 seconds, I thinkthat's like a skill that's
really hard to do.
But it will help people see yourwork.
Yeah, I guess another thing is,so be concise, I think you need

(45:57):
to be like, you need to be likesimple enough that like kind of
any anyone can get it, but alsolike, just like target a broad
audience as well.
Because I also want my TikToksto be interesting to other
professors, other academics,plenty of PhD students and
professors and everything watchmy TikToks.
And I want them to be likeequally interesting to people

(46:17):
who are like in middle schooland also who like might be
professors as well.
And of course, sometimes I makeTikToks that are aimed at
different audiences.
I'll do the very simpleconformity study that a lot of
people have heard of, but I'llalso do things about the
replication crisis that are abit more advanced and those
would be aimed at differentaudiences.
Yeah, and then I guess the finalthing is maybe enthusiasm and

(46:42):
excitement, which I've said alot of times, but I see people
sort of not...
not sort of expressing that likeexcitement and charisma that uh
that i that i grew up with a lotof like when i was in the
theater community and when i dida lot of public speaking and
like i think that's somethingyou also need to do because yeah

(47:03):
tick tock it's it's a visualmedium it's you're you're
showing yourself and um you'reyou're speaking directly to the
screen and i think there is sortof like an um kind of an an art
form in that that you like haveto get used to and master, just
sort of the art of how do youspeak to the screen and act sort

(47:24):
of enthusiastic about something.
And that's way different thanwriting an article or doing a
podcast or things like that.

SPEAKER_02 (47:30):
Yeah, it's funny.
It reminds me, as aperformance-leading person also,
I remember as a kid, my mind wasblown when someone pointed out
the difference between stageacting and film acting, where
stage acting is big and it'sexpressive and you have these...
there's like a distance whereyou have to traverse, right?
And so you have to traversebigness.

(47:52):
Whereas in film, the camera'sright there.
There's time.
You can be more subtle and morenuanced and, you know, not give
everything away in your facelike vaudeville style.
But what's interesting is that,you know, you'd almost think
like, oh, and then TikTok isthis like, it's so, it's like
right in your hand.
It should be like the mostpersonal, but it's like the

(48:13):
process reverts back again whereyou kind of need to amp it up
more right because it's almostthe same kind of constraint
where you're like i need totraverse this this chasm and i
need to do it in a way thatagain on a podcast you go hey we
can slow down i've got you forthe hour we can explore but when
i've got 30 seconds like i needto hook you and keep you and

(48:37):
then when you're done you needto be like i want some more of
that

SPEAKER_00 (48:40):
Totally.
Yeah.
And that's cool that you have a,you have a performance
background too.
I feel like I should haveguessed that with the
communication stuff you do, but,um, but yeah, that's a really
good comparison.
Cause I, I did a lot of stageacting when I was young and I
thought I'd like pursue a careerin acting when I was young.
And I remember I was likehorrible at film acting because
I was too, once the camera wasclose, my facial expressions

(49:03):
were too big and everything, butit's, I feel like the whole, um,
Sometimes I'm like, was thattheater, all that theater
education actually helpful?
And I think I've finally found away to integrate my theater
education with my scienceeducation, because I think all
that practice of doingmonologues and theatrical stuff,
I think it has gone over to myscience communication and my

(49:27):
TikToks, because I definitelyuse all that performance skill.
And in many ways, I don't know,I was sometimes more shy as a
kid And like the stage or liketheater was where I would like
be able to like express myselfand really light up.
And I think like I can be likevery comfortable in front of

(49:48):
that TikTok camera, just likeexplaining a study.
And in a lot of ways, it's likeeasier for me than going to like
write a tweet about a study orsomething and getting like the
perfect words.
There's something where I justlike feel more comfortable like
speaking in front of like myphone camera.
So, yeah.
So yeah, and I mean, I think forlike a lot of people starting

(50:10):
TikTok, that's something thatlike might take like some time
to like get used to.
And I just like recommend beingpersistent with that.
And of course, like before I hadmy science TikTok, I was sort of
playing around with making justlike funny meme TikToks and
stuff.
And I was experimenting with theform and none of them did very
well.
But like I just, you know, Ispent a while getting used to

(50:32):
TikTok as like a genre, a mediumbefore I like fully dived into
this space.

SPEAKER_02 (50:38):
So by way of wrapping up, the last thing I
was going to ask is sort ofwe're kind of careening right
toward this point, which is whatdoes the future of all of this
look like for you?
Like, is this Things like TikTokalways make me nervous because
you go, I don't know, this couldbe gone tomorrow.
But like the seed of wanting todo this kind of outside of
academia communication, likewhere do you sit?

(51:01):
Is this kind of like a sciencecommunication part of the
long-term plan?
Or is this like, hey, this was afun year and a half, but like
ultimately we're going to shutdown the shop and go pursue
other things.
Like where does this fit in yoursort of plan for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 (51:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think my main goal right now is
I'm, like, finishing my PhD, I'mgoing into my postdoc, and I do
want to, like, try to pursue,like, an academic career and go
into become a professor.
Like, that's been my main goalrecently.
But I've always been intoscience communication, and I
feel like I've wanted to be,like, one of those professors

(51:40):
who sort of both, like, does alot of science communication and
is also very active in academia.
I mean, you're one of thoseprofessors here.
You're very involved in sciencecommunication and academia.
And I kind of want to, yeah, andI've always wanted to do that.
And my dream since I was like,probably like before I even got

(52:00):
into research psychology was tolike write a popular psychology
book.
And that is like still one of mydreams.
And hopefully I can keep doingTikToks and maybe use like
TikTok as like you know, alaunching pad for other forms of
science communication, such aslike writing a book or
something.
But yeah, Yeah, I mean, thething is, I don't think TikTok

(52:20):
will be gone tomorrow.
I think TikTok is on the upwardpath of growing.
And if anything, it's Facebook'susers that are declining.
It's Instagram's users that aredeclining.
And who knows, maybe in fiveyears, we'll all be like in the
metaverse and TikTok will likego the direction of Vine.
It's going to stick around a fewyears.
So my short term goal is to likebe...

(52:42):
To be consistent, I've beentaking kind of a break from
TikTok to focus on studies andmy thesis.
And also once I hit a million, Iwas like really exhausted trying
to get to a million.
I was like, okay, I'm going tofinally take a break.
But yeah, I want to be likeconsistent, maybe put out like
one TikTok a week, you know,something like something very

(53:03):
manageable and continue to sortof grow and build.
my TikTok audience.
And you sort of use that as likea launching point to other forms
of science communication, like abook or, you know, even maybe a
podcast, some things like that.
But I love sciencecommunication.
It's one of the things that likefeels like it gives me like
purpose in doing psychologyresearch.

(53:24):
Because when you're publishingin journals, sometimes you're
like, what is this all for?
Who's actually reading this?
What impact does it have?
And I think like psychology, alot of like social psychology
has uniquely had an impact onlike popular discourse and on
communication.
Because sometimes you're like,is this influencing policy?
Not really.

(53:45):
Are these interventions actuallybeing deployed in the real
world?
Not often.
But a lot of times like socialpsychology has had an impact on,
on public discourse.
So yeah, I feel like it willalways, this communication
aspect will always be like, willalways be like a part of my life
when I like, when I hopefullybecome a professor, go that

(54:07):
direction.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (54:09):
Great.
All right.
Well, I'll keep my fingerscrossed.
Keep my eyes open and appreciateyou taking the time.
This was educational, both interms of what TikTok is for
someone like me.
Yeah.
But also I think the way youapproach it has elements that
are relevant regardless of themedium that you're using.
So I think people will find thatuseful as well.

(54:32):
So thanks for taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 (54:34):
Cool.
Thanks so much.
This was a fun interview.

UNKNOWN (54:36):
Thank you.
Bye.

SPEAKER_02 (54:53):
Thanks to Steve Rathje for taking the time to
talk TikTok.
Head over to this episode's pageon Opinionsciencepodcast.com to
find links to Steve's website,and you can find him on TikTok
at Steve Psychology.
I'm also happy to say that sincethis conversation, I've become
more of a TikTok consumer.
I've definitely done the thingwhere all of a sudden it's

(55:14):
midnight and I've just beenwatching TikToks, so...
You got me.
This series on sciencecommunication is a special
presentation of my podcastOpinion Science, a show about
the science of our opinions,where they come from, and how
they change.
You can subscribe any old placewhere they have podcasts, your
Apples, your Googles, yourSpotifys, and you can help

(55:36):
spread the word about thepodcast and this science
communication series inparticular by sharing it on
social media, passing it alongto fellow scientists, science
writers, journalists, yourfavorite TikTok stars, and
leaving kind reviews.
of the podcast online.
Okie doke.
Thank you so much for listening.
Only one more episode left inthis series.
I wanted this series to focus onsocial science communication,

(55:59):
but as a social psychologistmyself, You'll notice that a lot
of the people I've had on theshow skew in the psychology
direction, but I did want tobroaden the net a bit.
So next week, it's politicalscience, baby, and how social
scientists have a uniqueopportunity to help the public
make sense of our politicalworld.

SPEAKER_01 (56:20):
That's one of the things that I've also gained
some appreciation for, and itoften surprises me, is like,
who's good at this?
Who's good at 800 words?
Tight, concise...
No jargon.
And who is, who sends me 1500words with 17 footnotes, you
know?
And then, you know, that's fine.

(56:42):
That's fair.
Like that's just, you need to dosome work on just sort of
helping people learn how ourformat works.
But like, you know, there'sclearly people who have like a
knack right out of the gate andother folks that don't.
And those things don'tnecessarily align with the
traditional markers of academicprestige.
I'm John Sides, and I'm aprofessor in the political
science department at VanderbiltUniversity, and I was a

(57:02):
co-founder of The Monkey Cageand currently serve as its
publisher.