THE Algorithmic Authenticity OF Shou Zi Chew

The CEO of the world's most influential social media company likes tacos, Sheryl Crow, and Diablo IV. Is he for real-ora really good politician?

- Dexter Thomas

BEFORE I SIT DOWN to talk to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, he apologizes for the noise. The evening’s guests have been doing sporadic sound checks all day: Peso Pluma running through his opening number, Offset ad-libbing over a backing track. I passed by throngs of One Direction fans to get into the park (Niall Horan for $25 is a solid deal). This isn’t where I imagined I’d be talking to the head of the most influential social media app on the planet, but the only way I could get on Chew’s calendar was by meeting him at TikTok’s first-ever music festival—a sold-out, two-stage program at the Cubs’ training facility in Mesa, Arizona.

The location makes no sense until you realize that for TikTok, location doesn’t matter. Only numbers do. The whole festival will be streamed exclusively on the app, for free (highlights would later air on Disney+ and Hulu); it’s the digits on the top left of everyone’s phone screen tonight that will be the ultimate metric of success or failure for this event.

I’m also here because it seems like Chew never really got to introduce himself on his own terms. When he stepped in as TikTok’s CEO in mid-2021, there was little fanfare; the official @TikTok account didn’t even make a TikTok about it. Instead, Chew’s introduction to the wider public took place during a barrage of questions at a congressional hearing in Washington, DC, last March. “It was a circus,” a TikTok employee tells me, speaking under condition of anonymity. “They didn’t even let him talk. They had the attitude of ‘You’re a Chinese spy, and we’re gonna beat the shit out of you.’”