The year is 2019 and the technology has almost succeeded at redefining conventions. Take TikTok for example. A few months ago, parents all over the country frowned on teenagers' obsession with it. The government too considered banning the app all over the country. But now, its ex-haters are in fact encouraging their children to use the app. The reason? A lot of influencers and online tutors are using the medium to educate others.
The app has also come up with a #EduTok challenge, calling its users to create content around various themes with a focus on education, motivation, health and wellness. We decided to catch up with three such 'Edutokers', from different parts of India.
Geet has been a TikToker for 5 months now. A differently-abled social worker, she offers basic English/internet lingo lessons and is a motivational speaker. "I knew that TikTok was very popular and was drawn to it. I started out by doing comedy lipsync videos with my grandmother. I also made small motivational videos alongside," says Geet. After receiving a lot of positive response from the audience, Geet increased the frequency of creating content. A few of them then noticed Geet's excellent flair in English language and asked her to post English language tutorial videos. Hence, she opened another profile called EnglishWithGeet. "It was initially a real challenge to make short educational videos. But I took it up. The response was overwhelming," says Geet.
Awal Madaan is also an Edutoker who teachers people English. But here's what sets him apart from Geet - Awal's lessons are in Hindi. He says a sentence in Hindi and then translates it in English, often in a quirky way. "I explain meanings of sentences and words in Hindi so that Hindi speakers understand the language easily," says Awal, who joined TikTok three months back. "Creators have to be present where the audience is and that is why I chose Tiktok over any other platform," says Awal, who is in awe with the ease of video creation in Tiktok.
It has been a little over hundred days since motivational speaker Mahendra Dogney started his TikTok journey. Someone who creates videos on self-improvement and self-empowerment, he says, "I have always loved making videos and I thought it will be interesting to make short Tiktok videos too. Thankfully, people liked it." Mahendra also says that after his videos became popular, people from places all over the world have started approaching him for life lessons.
