Jimmy Gullberg has 129,200 followers on the social media platform TikTok, many of whom look to him for entertaining advice about his job as a physician assistant in Milwaukee.
Despite his growing audience, Gullberg isn’t quitting his daytime job anytime soon. Nor does he have any intention of letting his TikTok “brand,” @pacollective, stagnate. Since May 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, he’s begun producing 20 to 30 short videos a month using comedy to mentor students and illuminate the lives of healthcare workers.
These videos make money. How much, exactly, Gullberg won’t say. But he and other Wisconsin entrepreneurs are part of TikTok’s explosive international growth. In 2017, ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese-based owner of TikTok, generated $63 million in revenue. Last year, it was $4.6 billion, according to Business of Apps data.
Far surpassing Facebook, YouTube and other social media, TikTok’s short-form video platform (think of YouTube videos but much, much shorter) has attracted and encouraged a new, more direct kind of capitalism.
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