I was recently nose-deep in a TikTok scandal surrounding two Ugandan content creators who were fighting for the originality of their content.

What is the origin of this scuffle, you ask? Well, one accused the other of copying their skincare-related content, and I found this jarring.

In this day and age, stealing online content is just hard to comprehend as creators of the same niche, in one way or another, make similar stuff. But this was outright theft.

Being the nosey person that I am, I went on a stalking spree of both accounts, and I must say, the distraught creator was indeed being stolen from. However, this TikTok war made me reflect on how content creation is perceived in Ugandan middle-class society.

As an aspiring content creator, struggles with identity are not new.

On one hand, it can feel like you need to invest in a certain aesthetic to draw in a large audience, and on the other hand, stars like Rango Tenge shoot to success by simply eyeballing a camera and doing a quirky, wriggly dance.

To think that a renown R&B artist like Chris Brown wanted to meet Tenge and not the likes of Lucy Smize, who has been in the content creation business for as long as I can remember, beats my understanding.

There’s this tricky little guy called an algorithm on TikTok, and just like the future, he’s extremely unpredictable. So, it doesn’t matter if you have the best camera quality or the glassiest of skins; it’s up to the algorithm to decide your fate on TikTok.

Nevertheless, these concerns still exist, and many social media users in Kampala still feel that they have to go to certain restaurants, make-up artists, or have a certain living arrangement to feel that they “belong” on that app.

There was a time when that mattered, but social media has evolved to the point that not only the glossy parts of our lives are worthy of being on the internet.

Look at the 24-year-old Khaby Lame, someone who began his TikTok journey by saying nothing and everything. He now earns up to $750,000 per TikTok post.

Whereas it was the norm to have carefully curated pages showing only the pretty parts of our daily lives, TikTok created a shift, and now, creators show all the crevices of their private lives.

My favorite genre of this content so far is Get Ready With Me (GRWM). Users show us their daily preparation routines, right from when they get up to when they leave the house.

It’s truly fascinating how social media can give me, a random Ugandan, a front-row seat into the life of a random teenager called Jessica in Texas.

Of course, sometimes we attempt to trick the algorithm in pursuit of going viral by tagging with specific words or using trending songs, but I guess that little guy just cannot be tricked.

Basically, you are a content creator; you just do not know it. If you feel that your content is not good enough or that you do not have the right equipment to start, there’s no point in self-pity because the algorithm does not care.