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The app has spawned numerous viral trends, Internet celebrities, and music trends around the world.[116] Duets, a feature that allows users to add their own video to an existing video with the original content's audio, have sparked many of these trends.[117] Many stars got their start on musical.ly, which merged with TikTok on 2 August 2018. These include Loren Gray, Baby Ariel, Zach King, Lisa and Lena, Jacob Sartorius, and many others. Loren Gray remained the most-followed individual on TikTok until Charli D'Amelio surpassed her on 25 March 2020. Gray's was the first TikTok account to reach 40 million followers on the platform. She was surpassed with 41.3 million followers. D'Amelio was the first to ever reach 50, 60, and 70 million followers. Charli D'Amelio remained the most-followed individual on the platform until she was surpassed by Khaby Lame on 23 June 2022. Other creators rose to fame after the platform merged with musical.ly on 2 August 2018.[118] TikTok also played a major part in making "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X one of the biggest songs of 2019 and the longest-running number-one song in the history of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.[119][120][121]

TikTok has allowed many music artists to gain a wider audience, often including foreign fans. For example, despite never having toured in Asia, the band Fitz and the Tantrums developed a large following in South Korea following the widespread popularity of their 2016 song "HandClap" on the platform.[122] "Any Song" by R&B and rap artist Zico became number one on the Korean music charts due to the popularity of the #anysongchallenge, where users dance to the choreography of the song.[123] The platform has also launched many songs that failed to garner initial commercial success into sleeper hits, particularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.[124][125] However, it has received criticism for not paying royalties to artists whose music is used on the platform.[126]

Classic stars are able to connect with younger audiences born decades after a musician's first debut and across traditional genres. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood. The song re-entered Billboard Hot 100 after 43 years and topped Apple Music. In 2022, Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" went viral among fans of Stranger Things, topping the UK singles chart 37 years after its original release. In 2023 Kylie Minogue's "Padam Padam" entered the Radio 1 playlist after being shared by Gen Z, even though many youth radio stations had refused to play it. Other older artists with strong engagement on TikTok include Elton John and Rod Stewart.[127] In Japan, artists from the 1970s to 1990s, such as Kohmi Hirose, Yōko Oginome, Akina Nakamori, Seiko Matsuda, Momoe Yamaguchi and Saki Kubota, have become popular on TikTok during the Showa (and early Heisei) retro boom.[128][129][130][131]

In June 2020, TikTok users and K-pop fans "claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets" for President Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma through communication on TikTok,[132] contributing to "rows of empty seats"[133] at the event. Later, in October 2020, an organization called TikTok for Biden was created to support then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.[134] After the election, the organization was renamed to Gen-Z for Change.[135][136]

On 10 August 2020, Emily Jacobssen wrote and sang "Ode to Remy", a song praising the protagonist from Pixar's 2007 computer-animated film Ratatouille. The song rose to popularity when musician Daniel Mertzlufft composed a backing track to the song. In response, began creating a "crowdsourced" project called Ratatouille the Musical. Since Mertzlufft's video, many new elements including costume design, additional songs, and a playbill have been created.[137] On 1 January 2021, a full one-hour virtual presentation of Ratatouille the Musical premiered on TodayTix. It starred Titus Burgess as Remy, Wayne Brady as Django, Adam Lambert as Emile, Kevin Chamberlin as Gusteau, Andrew Barth Feldman as Linguini, Ashley Park as Colette, Priscilla Lopez as Mabel, Mary Testa as Skinner, and André De Shields as Ego.

A viral TikTok trend known as "devious licks" involves students vandalizing or stealing school property and posting videos of the action on the platform. The trend has led to increasing school vandalism and subsequent measures taken by some schools to prevent damage. Some students have been arrested for participating in the trend.[138][139] TikTok has taken measures to remove and prevent access to content displaying the trend.[140] Another TikTok trend known as the Kia Challenge involves users stealing certain models of Kia and Hyundai cars manufactured without immobilizers, which was a standard feature at the time, between 2010 and 2021.[141] As of February 2023, it had resulted in at least 14 crashes and eight deaths according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.[142] In May, Kia and Hyundai settled a $200-million class-action lawsuit by agreeing to provide software updates to affected vehicles and over 26,000 steering wheel locks.[143] In 2023, a trend emerged where streamers acted as if they were video-game characters following prompts from their viewers.[144]

On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, some celebrities who had garnered large followings as of August 2019 include Dilraba Dilmurat, Angelababy, Luo Zhixiang, Ouyang Nana, and Pan Changjiang.[145] In the 2022 FIFA World Cup, a Qatari teenage royal became an Internet celebrity after his angry expressions were recorded in Qatar's opening match loss to Ecuador;[146] he amassed more than 15 million followers in less than a week after creating a Douyin account.[147]