Warning to Writers: Mean Girls TikTok Prank Raises Concerns

Febin MathewOctober 8, 23 TikTok

The internet has a penchant for taking beloved quotes from popular culture and transforming them into online celebrations, as seen with events like “Star Wars Day” on May 4th and “Mean Girls Day” on October 3rd. On October 3rd, social media was abuzz with quotes, memes, and contributions from the cast of the film “Mean Girls.” Additionally, Paramount Pictures made the entire movie available on TikTok.

This is not completely unheard of in the history of the platform. Like YouTube before it, TikTok has long been populated by fans (or pirates, depending on how you want to look at it) who upload wildly different quality clips of their favorite movies and TV shows — often entire episodes and movies. limits variable maximum lengths.

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The difference between typical TikTok piracy and Paramount’s Mean Girls download is that the copyright holder did it this time. This is the first time (to our knowledge) that a major studio has chopped and dropped an entire film on this platform. The move freed the stunt — which was intended exclusively for “Mean Girls Day” as the videos were removed by Oct. 3 — from questions of copyright infringement.

But there is another, more pressing question. One that should remind the Writers Guild of America to be careful not to spend too much time dancing in the finish line after they won a tough battle against the studios last month.

It comes down to this: Does the Mean Girls TikTok upload warrant another conversation about how residuals are paid to actors and writers much sooner than expected?

I’m far from the first person to wonder about the potential conflict. In August, when NBC’s Peacock made all episodes of Killing It available on TikTok, hit captain Caroline Renard asked a sensible question on X (formerly Twitter): “Hmmmm. Do we now have full TV episodes uploaded to TikTok and Twitter in our contracts?”

As the appetite for legacy entertainment grows—even on platforms dominated by social media creators—it’s in Hollywood unions’ best interest to have an answer.

The problem of studios uploading content to TikTok may not be unique to today; In fact, Paramount’s move to Mean Girls is more reminiscent of the concern over the last WGA blowout in 2007-2008.

At that time, streaming provisions were not yet a contractual factor. Netflix’s House of Cards, the first streaming series, was still five years away, and the old TV residual paradigm (work on a show, make it a hit enough to last at least four seasons and go into syndication, live off the residual) was still in play. But one of the problems with the earlier strike was the lack of compensation for studio-approved advertising material.

At the time, The Office writers and producers shed some light on the situation with a short WGA video. “In our second season we were asked to write webisodes,” said Mike Schur. “And we wrote 10 original webisodes, the whole writing staff wrote them … and eight or nine series regulars starred in them, and they all got put on NBC.com and they sold ads. And they’re still available on NBC.com, and they’re still selling ads. And we won a Daytime Emmy for those webisodes.” Mindy Kaling stated that no one was compensated for it.

“In some sense, this is what we’re hitting,” Paul Lieberstein added. “We just want to get paid fairly for our campaigns.”

He got a laugh by calling these webisodes “promotional”; Apparently, the time spent on them and the end results were more than just an advertisement for a television series.

The limited-time upload of Mean Girls on TikTok was essentially a promotion for the film, striking a moment when it was on the minds of many fans and those learning about the film (and the October 3 reference) for the first time. .

No matter how you say it, it still works – for which you should always be fairly compensated. In an email, a representative for Paramount Pictures said the talent would be paid residual fees under the applicable collective bargaining agreement for use of the original Mean Girls film on TikTok. And the huge social media response to its appearance there presumably helped drive viewers back to streaming platforms to watch the film again. The recently won residual payment deal between the WGA and the studios could mean this was a win for both parties.

But one thing is certain in all of this: those who own popular movies and television shows continue to find new ways to monetize them. And from this point of view, the WGA strike victory should not be called the end of these struggles, but a new chapter in them. The aggressive demands, debate, and labor action required by this year’s conflict will continue to be needed as long as new technology and new trends create new challenges to properly rewarding writers, directors, and actors for their work.