Tiktok Games in Tokyo. How to become a famous athlete without medals

The Olympic Tiktokers have become a symbol of the Tokyo Games on social media. In their blogs, they break beds, smuggle alcohol into the rooms, arrange challenges and tell how tiktok helps not to think about the upcoming competitions. They got the opportunity to share such content from the Olympic Village only this year: before that, the IOC monitored the posts of the Olympic participant and prohibited the publication of videos.

The world, exhausted by the pandemic lasting for the second year, is no longer closely following the achievements of athletes at the Tokyo Olympics, but the first lines of news are devoted to the everyday life of the Olympians and the incidents in the Olympic Village. At one point, athletes from the USA, Puerto Rico, Ireland and other countries became famous bloggers in Tiktok and have many followers. This was due to changes in the guidelines for the use of social media and electronic media that the International Olympic Committee has been preparing for each game since 2011.

At the previous Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the IOC, in its rules for athletes and other participants, encouraged athletes to share content on social networks. At the same time, the organizers warned: any activity of the Olympians on the Internet will be monitored, and posts on Instagram or other social networks may be deleted due to violation of the requirements. The content for social networks was to be filmed only in the first person and be a video diary. Athletes were prohibited from acting as journalists: for example, interviewing their colleagues or other accredited participants.

Social media guidelines also guided the behavior of athletes. Their morale had to correspond to the "Olympic spirit of the games".

Athletes' Internet content must comply with the Olympic Charter and the Olympic values ​​of excellence, respect and friendship. Social media activities by Olympic accredited individuals must be of good taste, dignified, and free of vulgar or obscene content.

In addition, the IOC has banned the creation of short videos using materials from the Olympics and their distribution on any platforms, writes the BBC news outlet. Therefore, the profiles of athletes usually looked static: a few official photos from the opening and the awards ceremony (if you're lucky).

Due to the rules, participants in the Olympics had to carefully check everything that gets into social networks. Because of this, the image of the Olympian on Instagram or Facebook was distanced from the viewer. It is impossible to ignore the development of social networks, and the IOC made concessions. In 2021, athletes gained greater freedom of action and gained the ability to publish videos, which is enshrined in the "updated" set of rules.

The 2021 Olympic Games were the first in the Tiktok era. The platform for creating videos appeared back in 2016, but gained mass fame only in 2019. During the Tokyo Games, the popular social network became one of the main alternatives to television and online broadcasts: from it, users learn about the results of competitions and follow the everyday life of athletes. Athletes who have had the opportunity to document their every step use it to the fullest. They film workouts, everyday life in the Olympic Village and joke a lot.

This brought them a rise in subscribers and recognition on social media. Athletes who blog outside of training become popular for their content, not for getting on the podium. At the same time, the attention to the Olympic Games on the social network is only growing: by hashtags related to competitions, you can find hundreds of clips of viewers who post athletic TikTok stars or react to their videos.

The lifting of the bans helped the athletes show their real life during the Games. For example, Puerto Rican basketball player Ali Gibson published a video in which she said that she managed to smuggle alcohol into the Olympic Village , where the "dry" law is in force. She violated the old rules governing the behavior of athletes in social networks for ten years on several points at once. But in 2021, a funny video brought her not problems, but fame.

The first female blogger at the Tokyo Olympics to achieve stellar status on the social network and was written by such Western publications as Forbes, The New York Times, Fox News was the US rugby player Ilona Mekher. She has amassed more than half a million subscribers thanks to videos in which she says that she is free "for all athletic demigod athletes" and shows how her teammate has to braid all team members because she alone can do it.

Her tiktoks collect millions of views, and Western publications call her a "sensation". In one of her videos, Maher, who became famous even before playing her first match on July 29, explained why she decided not to leave her social networks in Tokyo:

I do not like my body, I am very angry with myself when I make mistakes, I realize that some people do not like me. I am worried about everything. Tiktok is my refuge where I can forget that I have an important game on my nose.

The Olympians even managed to create a new trend and meme. Thanks to a viral video from the Olympic Village, people on the Internet recognized cardboard beds. Since then, almost every self-respecting TikToker athlete has already tried to break it . So far, nine Israeli basketball players have succeeded.

After weakening social media rules, Tiktoker Olympians are constantly generating content, and while they maintain social distance at the Olympics opening procession, their distance from fans is shrinking. Thousands of sports fans cannot attend the Tokyo Games, but with the help of tiktok and outgoing athletes, they have found themselves in the position of privileged spectators. The TikToker athletes themselves also remained in the black: they do not need to win competitions in order to feel the people's love.

The 2021 Olympic Games will be remembered not only for their funny tiktok, but also for their touching stories. The Canadian swimmer won gold , but it took her a while to figure it out, because of poor eyesight.

Some of the events of the Olympics became resonant. Transgender weightlifter Laura Hubbard became a celebrity even before her first appearance at the Games.