One of the biggest apps in the world had one of the most interesting 24 hours over the weekend in the United States.
On Saturday night, TikTok went down in the United States for 14 hours, leaving 170 million users and content creators without the app.
Service came back online for the United States Sunday morning after Donald Trump — before his second inauguration — reversed the social media blackout. In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said he would sign an executive order on Monday to pause the ban for 75 days until the app is sold to an American buyer.
The Sacramento History Museum has benefited from the app’s popularity and has become a social media sensation. The museum, which started creating short videos during the pandemic, is the most followed museum on TikTok with 2.8 million followers.
The museum’s TikTok videos frequently feature volunteer Docent Howard Hatch using their antique printing press. Hatch frequently showcases 19th-century printing techniques while he shares his knowledge of the history of Sacramento.
@sachistorymuseum
“I always have seen Howard as sort of this trifecta. He's definitely an older person than what you would see on TikTok,” said Jared Jones, the museum’s social media manager. “We are not just talking about how people received their news 150 years ago, we're bringing it to people today on the very medium that they receive their news, their phones. And we're not just talking about it, we're showing it. There's all the sounds and stuff like that that go along with it as well.”
Jones joined CapRadio’s Insight this week to discuss the museum’s rise to social media fame during the pandemic, the impact their TikTok videos have on their fans, and how Howard the printer became a sensation.
This story has been edited for length, clarity and flow.
Interview highlights
How did Howard the docent become such a sensation on TikTok?
Howard has been a volunteer docent at the Sacramento History Museum for almost 26 years. He has been definitely one of our most reliable docents when it comes to our school programs, and that's how he really got started when he retired, was giving presentations to school kids learning about letterpress printing at the time of the Gold Rush. After all, it is the newspaper that would spread the word of gold in California.
This week is a very historic week in general, considering Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848. For us, I would say it started in the summer of 2020; I created a TikTok account. My boss at the museum gave me the go ahead. Our then-president — and now the current president — was wanting to ban TikTok at that time. So this isn't a new thing to have, [a TikTok ban] being in the news, but we started to film content, and it really started to take off because we were not only talking [about] history, we were demonstrating history.
You are the most followed museum on the site, with 2.8 million followers on TikTok. How has this been valuable for the Sacramento History Museum?
The real reason behind creating a TikTok account was we were closed, this was the height of the pandemic when no museums were allowed to be open. This was our way of keeping our museum relevant and keeping our name out there.
After all, the Sacramento History Museum was founded in 1985. If you were to talk to most people in Sacramento beforehand, before our TikTok account, they would have said, “What museum?” We're at the northwest corner of Old Sacramento, next door to the very wonderful California State Railroad Museum. We were often confused for the railroad museum.
So this was a way to just start educating [those] people that we existed. And those were some of the first comments we were getting in videos, “I've lived in Sacramento my entire life. I had no idea that this museum was there.” TikTok gave us the opportunity to start to not only share history, but also to continue in something that I think is really important right now, is just making history accessible in reaching people wherever they are at in the world. We are breaking down the physical barriers of our museum and reaching people that don't live just a mile away, but also the people that would never be able to visit our museum in person, whether it's across the country or across the world.
Have other museums adopted a similar style after just seeing how the Sacramento History Museum blew up in popularity on TikTok?
I'd like to say that that's how we might be influencers. I don't think Howard and I are your typical example of influencers or content creators, that's for sure. But in the influencer category, I'd like to think that we did influence some museums to start thinking about creating digital, short form content to be able to reach a larger audience. I've seen other letterpress printing videos from other museums, which I think is fantastic. It helps to highlight we're not the only ones doing this stuff.
Were you surprised when TikTok briefly went down over the weekend?
[TikTok has] definitely shaped not only what my job is at the Sacramento History Museum, it's not only shaped how the museum operates in general, but also the kind of relationship that Howard and I have.
We didn't really chat with each other that much before starting to make these videos. I've been at the museum for over eight years now, but to be able to work closely with Howard over the last four and learning letterpress printing through the process — that was what our initial videos were about — was not just I was learning printing. I was able to share my apprenticeship with our audience, so I've been thankful that people have been along with us through this whole process. I don't know what to think about if TikTok was to go away in 75 days, or whenever the next potential deadline is.
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