Brand, dunk thyself
Amtrak and budget airlines flirt with disaster on TikTok.
Welcome to Embedded, your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, published Monday through Friday by Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci. “Get Embedded” on Twitter and Instagram. 🧩
As someone who has taken Amtrak and flown with both Ryanair and KLM ... it’s actually all bad. —Kate
Being a brand on TikTok still feels like it goes against the premise of the whole app—kind of like a Chase Bank float at Pride. This place where individuals without status or resources can share their creativity with an audience of millions is being invaded by corporations with full-blown social media teams whose job is to figure out how to dupe your algorithm. Luckily for users, few have cracked the code. The only industries that routinely appear on my For You page are also practically beloved on the app: trains and planes.
It all started with Amtrak, which happened to share its 50th birthday with Charli D’Amelio’s 17th, and capitalized on that for one of its first posts. From there, it shared a series of the increasingly incredulous comments left on their videos, like “It also takes 50 years for your trains to arrive on time,” to the sound of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September” played poorly on the recorder (side note: this still makes me cry with laughter).
The account continues to post viral videos—like this one of an Amtrak cabin gone full cottagecore—while responding gamely to an onslaught of abuse (“Transitions need some work,” one comment reads. “Relax Josh,” Amtrak replies).
Over in Europe, budget airline Ryanair has over 600,000 followers and regularly receives millions of views for videos poking fun at itself for not flying to America and making it a whole celebration when each plane lands. Ryanair’s success has even inspired “fan accounts” for other airlines. What’s not clear is whether these are free commercials for the competing brands, or liabilities for all involved. For instance, pretty much every video from this KLM Airlines fan account is a dunk on Ryanair, and has thousands of views. A fan account for Norwegian Air claims that Ryanair’s in-flight product shilling prevents passengers from sleeping; in a comment, the KLM account quite literally referenced a “rumor” that Ryanair crashes its planes into buildings.
I suppose these videos resonate with users because transportation is pretty much universal—we all gotta go places. And when you think about it, dunking on brands has become practically universal, too, at least online. But while we’re familiar with the official Wendys account razzing the official Burger King account (or whatever) on Twitter, the chaotic pursuit of virality on TikTok means fake brands are dunking on real brands … or maybe straight up making unfunny jokes about them crashing their planes. Even for a brand, like Amtrak, that charmingly roasts its critics, winning on TikTok can look an awful lot like losing.