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More than one billion users visit TikTok every month, and since its launch in 2016, it has become one of the most popular social media platforms. And also controversial. India, for example, prohibited application in 2020 and Australia prohibited children under 16 years of age from using this and other social networks this month.

Each year, NPR interviews TikTok creators around the world, exploring the trends, subcultures and stories that are driving cultural and social change in the Global South. This year we interviewed authors from Brazil, Gaza, Kenya and Tanzania. Each of the four authors has garnered millions of views, but they have also contributed to a much bigger story: a story of hope, protection and connection.

Another way to play with a soccer ball

Becoming a professional footballer has always been Arthur Marquez's desire (@arthurzinnv) target.

“In Brazil, becoming a professional footballer is every child’s dream,” Marquez says through a translator.

The 20-year-old TikToker has made that dream a reality.

Yes, he plays football for a living. But this is football with a twist.

It's called highTranslated from Portuguese it means “a little higher.” Players stand in a circle and keep the ball in the air for as long as possible, using your feet, knees, chin, thighs, head and even buttocks – anything but your hands. Marquise record it's five minutes.

Sounds… a little short. But that's not true. “It’s a lot of time,” Marquez says. “It looks easy, but there is a lot of dynamics in the game. It's almost like boxing non-stop for five minutes.”

Locals started Playing football on the famous Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro in 1927. collided with sunbathers, and officials tightened the rules. By the 1930s, restrictions made the sport increasingly difficult to play on the beach, and although enforcement waxed and waned over the decades, obstacles persisted.

so local football fans invented high in the 1960s on Ipanema Beach. However, he was not always welcomed on Brazilian beaches, and even temporarily banned in 2009.

For Marquez, his dream of becoming a professional footballer faded when he realized he didn't have the ability to reach the elite level. Therefore he turned to high. In 2021, he started practicing the sport and a year later he started posting his videos on TikTok.

While the game is played across the country, its pulse beats in Rio. To be closer to the scene, Marquez commuted into the city from his hometown of Sao Gonçalo, about an hour's drive across the bay from Rio. Still in school and the son of two street vendors, he could barely afford to commute to work.

“My siblings and I had hard times growing up, but it was never that hard because we had each other,” Marquez recalls.

As his videos began to gain popularity, Marquez devoted himself entirely to social media. He says he would sometimes stay up until 4 a.m. to edit videos on his mom's phone, which was newer and faster than his phone, and then head to high school two hours later.

Marquez is now part of a growing trend playing high on the street courts of Rio's favelas—the lowest-income neighborhoods—rather than on the beach. Neymar is one of the Brazilians most famous football players – even joined Awning for the round high in the old warehouse in July of this year.

“I tried to act cool and professional, but inside I was so excited,” Marquez says.

His next stop is Africa. biggest international football tournament, where he was invited to demonstrate the game in Morocco. His goal is to help one day bring the sport to the Olympic Games.

“When I play, I can bring people together from different places and walks of life. high” says Marquez. “This is the moment when we must forget our differences.”

Forgotten corners of African history

Driving through the busy streets of Nairobi, Kenya, Valerie Keter (@valerie_keter) was intrigued by the billboard.

“It was an advertisement for a German language school, and it said ‘Schule,’” Koether recalls. “In my mind, I'm thinking, 'Shule actually speaks Swahili at school.' So I start thinking, “Okay, who borrowed from whom?”

This question led Keter down a rabbit hole. study the history of Swahili – the most widely spoken language in Kenya – and presenting his findings on TikTok.

“From there, I discovered that there were actually more Swahili words borrowed from other languages, not just German,” Keter explains.

This epiphany is one of many that prompted the 31-year-old to make videos about forgotten corners of African history and culture. She sometimes wears the traditional beaded collars of the Maasai people of southern Kenya when she tells her stories.

Her passion for history and storytelling stems from documentaries she watched with her family as a child. As she grew older, she realized how few documentaries covered African history.

“To this day, it stays with me and I think it brought me to the point where I saw the need to represent Africa,” she says. “It’s important to make sure everyone knows what our history entails and the fact that Africa has a very rich history.”

Next year, she hopes to collect and share the stories of elders—stories that never made it into textbooks because they were passed down orally. Keter sees this work as a bridge between parts of the continent separated by culture and language.

“If you look at francophone countries and then at anglophone countries in Africa, we are not in each other's space. It’s like everyone is on their own,” Keter says. “Creating this type of content allowed me to interact with other creators from across the continent.”

Giving hope to Gaza

At first glance, Hamada Shakur (@hamadasoo) TikToks look like any other so-called “sizzling cut”—quick, close-up cooking clips stitched together with amplified sounds of knives slicing through vegetables, liquids splattering on pans, and food hitting hot oil.

But his direct gaze, furrowed brow and serious demeanor stand out, as does the wreckage behind him.

“This expression comes from the fatigue we felt during the war,” Shakura says through a translator.

His expression softens at the end of the video as he hands out food to Palestinian children in northern Gaza. “The situation here is very difficult and during this difficult time I wanted to try to do something special, especially for these children.”

The 34-year-old has been posting his cooking videos since 2024. It's a stark change from his work before the war, when he reviewed food in Gaza restaurants.

“Before the war, I wanted to become a food blogger, travel the world, try different cuisines and experience the world through food culture,” he says.

This year has been especially difficult for the creator. In August, a UN-supported group of international experts on food insecurity stated famine in the region and suffering malnourished children made headlines. At the same time, food prices soared to the skieswhich forced Shakura to take a three-month break.

While the designation of famine was raisedhunger continues capture parts of the Gaza Strip. His video back in October, and they became even more important. Weeks after his return to social media, Shakura and his wife welcome their second child.

“My son and daughter were born during the war, so I wanted to help children even more, because all the children in Gaza are also my children,” Shakura says. “I want these kids to feel that there is still hope—that they can still eat good food and enjoy good things.”

Shakura claims his fame is a cruel paradox. If it weren't for the war, he says his TikToks probably wouldn't have received international recognition. Yet despite the difficulties of the conflict, he remains hopeful.

“I felt that people in Gaza were missing this feeling—the feeling of good food,” Shakura says. “I want to remind them what the food was like before the war and what the atmosphere was like before the war. We are trying to return what we experienced before the war. We will restore people's hopes. We will rebuild the Gaza Strip and show people what life was like before this war.”

Tanzanian inspired by Charlie Chaplin

A one-off job cleaning a church in Tanzania led to Fanuel John Masamaki (@zerobrainer0) corporate look.

“I was cleaning the church, and one of the things we found was this hat,” Masamaki says through a translator. “When I started wearing it in the first few videos, people reacted positively to it, so I kept wearing it.”

The distressed hat, reminiscent of an antique military cap, is olive green in color and stylized with a thin gold piping running along the perimeter. Below is a darker layer that wraps around the base, with a single metal button on the side. The fields themselves are short, shiny and black. Masamaki wears an oversized cap pulled back with a wide smile—a playful contrast to her authoritarian design.

The 25-year-old now wears a cap and long coat in his videos of him playing football in a Charlie Chaplin-style pantomime – exaggerated, off-kilter moves that mimic the English actor, minus the mustache and cane.

“I'm actually a big Charlie Chaplin fan. I used to watch it a lot when I was younger,” says Masamaki. “Like Charlie Chaplin, I don’t talk during my skits. I get a lot of inspiration from his work.”

And it seems that Chaplin's influence rubbed off on Masamaki. As a young student, he regularly performed comedy skits in his hometown, he said.

Masamaki grew up in Tanzania's Kilimanjaro region, one of seven children born to two farmers.

“Life was not easy. This is the life many African families live,” Masamaki recalls. “Life was difficult growing up with parents who didn’t make a lot of money.”

Despite a difficult childhood, Masamaki clung to art. Storytelling became his main focus and he dropped out of university in his final year of mechanical engineering.

That same year, he began posting on TikTok, choosing the username “zerobrainer0” to reflect his slapstick comedy. “It literally means you're crazy.”

At the time when it was recent quarrel In Tanzania, Masamaki sees his videos as an opportunity for Tanzanians to take their minds off the country's bitter divisions. And now he views his signature hat, once worn by a stranger, as a symbol of unity.

“I like that my content is not political,” says Masamaki. “My job is to help my bereaved fans dry their tears. It brings back smiles, happiness and warmth – all of it.”

Jacob Azar, Samuel Evans and Felipe Oliveira translated interviews with Hamada Shakura, Fanuel John Masamaki and Arthur Marquez, respectively. Michal Ruprecht is a global health fellow at Stanford University.