Social networks (and companies that work on the Internet in general) tend not to publicly disclose the numbers concerning them, except in very rare exceptions: difficult to get official information on subscribers, rankings of creators with more followers, with more likes or more comments. And yet, it is enough to know the platforms even superficially to realize that what Silvio Berlusconi said a Door to door cannot be true.
The leader of Forza Italia, who has a personal profile on TikTok since September 1sthe said that “for me it was and is a pleasant thing and I intend to continue”, even if “I do not know how many votes will be able to arrive”, and then he told a lie, reporting that “my first video on TikTok it reached 8.5 million people and broke all records in the world“. It’s just not true.
What are the most viewed videos on TikTok
As mentioned, it is not easy to know which are really the most viewed videos on TikTok, the ones that really “broke every record in the world“, but just scroll through the profiles of the most followed creators to realize that the former Knight’s is several million of views away. Indeed, billions of views away.
According to unofficial rankings, the most viewed clip of all is that of the American illusionist and director Zack King flying on a kind of magic broom: to date, it has almost 2.2 billion views. King and his tricks often appear in the top ten of TikTok: he has a 1.1 billion views video in which he plays hide and seek with friends, another in which he plays with a glass cup (almost 970 million views) and a another in which he paints a wall (660 million views).
In the ranking there are also videos that alone have contributed to increasing the popularity of TikTok, such as the Christmas one of the American make-up artist James Charles, which dates back to the end of 2019 and has totaled 1.7 billion views, or M to the B of the young woman. Bella Porch, which is now close to 700 million. Also inevitable is the presence of the Italian Khaby Lame, who has a clip in which he explains how to see if you have a car behind you before getting out of your own (with the rear view mirror, of course) which has exceeded 350 million views.
Berlusconi’s problems on TikTok
As you can see, these figures are not even comparable to those pitted by the leader of Forza Italia, who probably does well to stay on TikTok, but perhaps he has some problems that should be solved.
First of all, he is obviously ill-informed (or ill-advised) by his collaborators: if at 85 he went on TV to say that “my video broke every record in the world”, it is because someone told him that it was. Only that someone had miscalculated. Another problem, linked to this and this anxiety about numbers, is the vision of social networks as if they were television, where success is measured through Auditel: we should explain to Berlusconi (but not only to him) that it is not difficult to have a video with 2-3, 5 or 8.6 million views. Especially if you are Berlusconi. On TikTok it’s not hard to go viral once, it’s hard to do it and do it again. Consistency is difficult.
This is another of the ex-Knight’s problems, which can be clearly perceived by scrolling through his profile: after the initial exploit, his consensus is in visible decline, with followers that have more or less stabilized and have slowed down growth and the views that are swooping. After the initial surprise for his arrival, people’s attention seems to have shifted elsewhere.
The last problem, for Berlusconi, is linked to the fact that he has recently arrived on TikTok: he does not yet have a verified account (unlike many other colleagues and political opponents) and he is also surrounded by an ocean of clones, fake profiles that they try to take advantage of its popularity and steal its visibility. Maybe preventing him from really publishing a video that can “break all world records”.