Forbes’ 2022 ‘Top-Earning TikTok-Ers’ Fails to Include Black Creators
Forbes released their 2022 list of ‘top-earning TikTok-ers’, which lacked inclusivity by not naming a single Black creator. This comes as a betrayal to the Black creator community, who have crafted original, creative, and consistent content across the platform.
The publication, however, was eager to showcase the $55.5 million collectively generated by white creators across the platform. This success is supposedly credited to the initiative taken by these creators to expand their fame beyond the TikTok app. Forbes claims the list came as a natural result of examining which top-earners originated on TikTok specifically.
Twitter users questioned Black creator Khaby Lame’s absence from the publication, as he has attained just short of 127 million followers. Charli D’Amelio was named the top-earner on Forbes’ list and has a following of 133 million followers.
Khaby Lame is the second most followed TikToker but failed to make that Forbes 2022 “Top Earning TikTokers” piece. More of what I said when it first came out, not shocking but speaks to wider institutional issues which we’ve already known about.
2M is crumbs for his following https://t.co/6PXgAGzt1I— Nicolas-Tyrell Scott (@iamntyrell) January 16, 2022
Such discrepancies in net worth between Black content creators and those of their white counterparts raise concerns regarding systemic racism. TikTok has upset users by failing to promote Black content and allowing Black ideas to be appropriated by white creators.
Exhausted from watching non-Black creators appropriate and profit off their content, a digital strike was eventually led by Black TikTok-ers in which they refused to create new dances and trend ideas. Erick Louis, a Black dancer on the app says, “Even in the spaces we’ve managed to create for ourselves, [non-Black] people violently infiltrate and occupy these spaces with no respect for the architects who built it.”
Black creators literally carry TikTok on their backs. So many creators had their rise to fame (like ch*rli d’amelio) because of the creativity, work, and dedication of Black creators. The fact that not one Black creator was on the highest earning list is just sickening.— IT GIRL (@audreynfrench) January 19, 2022
Forbes’ list honored Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Bella Poarch, Josh Richards, Kris Collins and Avani Gregg– all non-Black creators. Failing to honor minority creators further perpetuates institutionalized racism and bias, as well as hurts the Black creators drawing in users to TikTok daily.
Forbes has not responded to the backlash against its publication. TikTok has yet to provide the Black community with tangible solutions and reparations. Youtube, on the other hand, pledged $100 million toward the success of Black creators and their art on the platform back in summer of 2020.
The Forbes list for the highest earning TikTokers got me ready to delete the app. Black people make TikTok what it is and yet no black creators made the list 🤨— SUCKAFREE 🖤 (@teeuh713) January 17, 2022
