TikTok has developed its own home design content method: skip the house and focus on the objects inside.
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When Frank Ocean played a song, the apartment appeared in the form of a flash. We saw a white sofa with pillows: white squares, pink squares, ocher balls, black squares. Then came a quick cut: a standing bookshelf (only white spine), another pillow, and a transparent coffee table (an opportunity, really, to show off the lattice rug below). We saw a pet dog on the bedspread, a side table, a TV stand, a sofa, and a dining area with Thonet-style chairs. In these selected images, there is a shelf of selected objects, centered on Polaroid cameras. Then there is the bedroom, the bar cart, and the white Smeg toaster. Before we absorb it, everything will pass, but we do not intend to absorb it-just to have an impression.
This is a typical post about what I think of Shelter TikTok, this is an article in 2021 about 20th Century Design and Architecture Magazine. On Shelter Tok, you don't move in one space, but hobble between it, from one project to another. The main content of this type includes a magnifying lens for carefully placed objects and a lack of interest in negative space. On TikTok, everything is flashing; why should the home be different?
In another video, we saw the tattooed hand turning the golden illuminated dial, then shaking the upholstered headboard. From there we cut to the ceiling, where a wooden chandelier hangs from the white lines in the undulating zebra stripes. The camera rotates to the floor and we see that the headboard is not used to put the bed; it supports a row of orange cushions. Nearby is an emerald carpet with an orange border, and in the center is a stylized image of a cheetah. We saw a gilded smiling face. A projection screen rolled up to reveal a mirror above the white brick fireplace. Hanging plants. An alcove full of windows. We return to the pointer on the dial; the video plays in a loop.
Some people will study these TikToks as closely as I did. They will stop in each room to pay attention to the details that can be collected on their Pinterest board, if not in their own home. They want to know the source of sofas, carpets, and bookshelves. "This is my style!" said a commenter on the first video, perhaps happy to find a new way to identify himself. "What would you call this?"
In 1946, the New York Times first used the term "shelter magazine" when the newspaper reported that Jerome J. Brookman was appointed as the advertising manager of "Your Own Home". This is a "shelter magazine dedicated to low-cost housing". "Bruckman was a veteran of World War II. He returned home during the real estate boom, as the other 2.4 million veterans received government-backed loans to realize their (usually suburban) American dream. It was during this period that things like Fashionistas like Elizabeth Gordon, who edited House Beautiful for 23 years, made the shelter category a blueprint for life. In 1960, Gordon’s two-phase series on the concept of Japanese astringency was so popular that the set was sold at a resale price. Up to $12-the equivalent of more than $110 today. In 2017, when I visited Gordon's archives at the Smithsonian, I found it was full of letters of praise for Japanese design issues. A woman wrote: " Since the doctor said:'This is a boy! 'Am I so excited"; her husband was very fascinated and built a terrace and windbreak forest inspired by the design in the magazine.
He can do this because, in addition to photos, the leading shelter magazines-House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens, House & Garden-all have floor plans and architectural instructions. They even have competing model house plans. Shelter means access to the structural aspects of the house as something that the occupants can control: light source, indoor climate, ceiling height, landscape.
At Shelter Tok, this kind of control is a thing of the past. Most American TikTok users are under 29. This group includes young millennials (only 37% of them will own a house before the age of 34), generation Z (up to 24 years old), and others who are too young to be considered Build windbreaks. According to Bloomberg News, 18% of millennial renters have no plans to stop renting; many will continue to live in situations where you can barely get permission to repaint. Some Shelter Tok videos may come from actual decorations-fixtures, appliances, wallpapers-but the audience is there to identify with the displayed taste rather than implementing it.
Where functions are not negotiable, form flourishes. Just like a teenager’s bedroom, Shelter Tok aims to cover up the lack of control with personal belongings and a good atmosphere. This is not only a far cry from the old Shelter Magazine; it is even a far cry from videos on other social media platforms. For example, YouTube-a platform with rich DIY furnishing content-is also home to Architectural Digest's celebrity series "Open Doors", where viewers are welcomed at the entrance of themed houses and guided to experience the actual flow of space. Shelter Tok There is no such procedure.
Last year, a popular TikTok video introduction was a version of "The objects in my house/apartment/bedroom are meaningful". This is the modern version of tearing down the wall to open the room: learn your identity at home. Recently, a variant of the beginning of a conversation shows the danger of becoming a young renter with a unique taste. "I think what makes my home special," its creator began to say. What we see is a tatami mat and a small stack of books on the floor, not a bookshelf. There is a Rei Kawakubo chair, but it is used to make sweaters, not for sitting. The decorations are few, but include a black single-handle vase, a purse hung on a cup hook from the ceiling, and a closed clothing bag.
These items were presented with a stern face, but some people doubted whether they were a joke. A friend pointed out to me that when you have a popcorn ceiling, it is difficult to get rid of the monastic minimalism of Rick Owens style. For me, a bigger problem is the inconvenient power outlets, which reminds me of all the ugly places I lived in in my 20s, because they are the best of the bad choices. Again, that Rei Kawakubo chair, which sells for more than $7,000, is still cheaper than a mortgage.
Last year, Dakota Johnson's green kitchen quickly became popular after appearing in the "Door Opening" series of Architectural Digest, paying special attention to the lime bowls cleverly placed on the counter. Johnson later admitted that she was mildly allergic to limes. The bowls are just for serving, and the arrangement of the items leaves a deep impression. I learned this information from TikTok, which you guessed right-the platform itself is the architecture, and we walked from room to room in slippers and browsed the algorithm.