If you’ve ever wished a TikTok was accompanied by a large block of text, you’re in luck! TikTok now allows you to share longer descriptions on videos.
Previously, TikTok’s descriptions were limited to a length akin to a tweet, or roughly 300 characters. The character limit has now been upped to 2,200 characters, which is the same as Instagram. As a video-first platform, descriptions have never been the focal point of TikTok, and the design of the app doesn’t even lend itself to reading them. The shorter the description, the easier the caption is to read. The longer video descriptions just push the text over the video, making it more difficult to watch the video in full.
In addition to the longer video descriptions, TikTok also highlighted several other updates in Thursday’s press release. The company officially announced photo mode, its carousel photo sharing feature — think an Instagram photo dump set to music — diversifying what TikTok has to offer to its users.
The platform is also making changes to the way you can edit videos, adding new ways to edit clips, sounds, and text, as well as the ability to add overlays and sound effects.
From TikTok’s photo and text updates to Instagram’s pivot to video and Twitter’s new video viewer, every major platform is in a never-ending battle to become the end-all be-all. And frankly, we don’t need 2,200 characters to tell it’s exhausting to witness.
