TikTok turns on the money machine

Alyssa McKay, a 22-year-old TikTok content creator, in West Hollywood, California, US. McKay used to work part-time at a frozen yogurt store in Portland, Oregon, making minimum wage to cover her college tuition. Now McKay earns more than US$100,000 a year on the short-video platform TikTok. — Bloomberg

Alyssa McKay used to work part-time at a frozen yogurt store in Portland, Oregon, making minimum wage to cover her college tuition. Now the 22-year-old earns more than US$100,000 (RM440,450) a year on the short-video platform TikTok.

Brands like Coach, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video pay up to reach her nine million followers, mostly teenage and pre-teen girls who wouldn’t dream of visiting Facebook.