Relatability

But where in the not-too-distant past that would have meant she was an automaton of joy and relatability, Ms. Lovato is already proving to be far more intriguing, and far less predictable.

[Charli] D’Amelio seems pretty unfazed by her rise. She’s having fun, hanging out, doing what she wants to do. She can’t tell you why her content has resonated the way it has—her account bio reads, “Don’t worry, I don’t get the hype either”—but she knows it has to do with her relatability. Relatable is to TikTok what aspirational was to Instagram—its most salient, sought-after quality. […] Relatability is also a factor of its algorithm, which suggests new content according to whatever you’ve previously viewed, and reliably scratches the same itch you’ve scratched before.