Philip Aiken has received more than 1.4m likes on the video-sharing app TikTok. But his videos don’t feature cute animals and there are no celebrities to be seen. Aiken’s posts are about soil restoration . The 27-year-old is one of a growing number of TikTok users discussing the benefits of boosting biodiversity in green spaces and gardens against a backdrop of viral sounds. “I see it as like planting seeds, and hopefully that germinates and that person wants to learn more,” says Aiken, known as Phil the Fixer on TikTok . Millennials and Generation Z are increasingly engaging with environmental issues by creating and sharing memes on social media. The hashtags “moss”, “biodiversity” and “native biodiversity” have 84.3 million, 12.6 million and nearly 800,000 views respectively on TikTok . The most-viewed biodiversity TikToks poke fun at monoculture lawns , praise the qualities of moss , provide explainers , support indigenous practices and warn of mass extinction . TikTok has around 800m active users worldwide and is particularly popular with Generation Z: an estimated 60% of users were born after the mid-90s. The images and clips go on to reach new audiences when reposted on Twitter and Facebook. A subculture […]
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