By: Cecilia Zhang

David Warren, a 22 year-old who is a TikToker with more than half a million followers, is making a short form video app with Triller just like TikTok offering a total of $14 million dollars to 300 black content creators.

After a year launching the platform Triller began recruiting Black talents its payments its payment to some creators has been uneven and unpredictable. For influencers, it is bad move turning reputation to paying a lot of money.

From 2020-2021 Triller launched content of houses in Hollywood Hills and pantered with a collab group named Sway Boys. Some TikTokers were paid up to 10,000 per stream on TrillerTV. Charli D’Ameilo, theUnited States’ most followed TikTok creator, got a black Rolls-Royce with a vanity plate that says TRILLER. Josh Richards, another TikTok star got a Mercedes Benz. The company is brainstorming with the top Hollywood creators on how to take down TikTok.

Black influencers are promised $4000 per month. But now as the creators deal with uncertain payments, they are forced to keep up with the demanding post schedule. Around late June after the creators began reporting the story, some creators received the month’s payment. In July creators began receiving the previous months payment.

“Us as Black creators work twice as hard or three times as hard just to be seen,” Warren a black creator said. “All these platforms preach about diversity, but just like old Hollywood, there’s a lot of people being used as token characters while the owners of the platforms profit.”