Entry into the world of work, first apartment, negotiations with a telephone operator… On the social network, users, mainly aged 18 to 24, learn how to resolve everyday disputes thanks to short entertaining videos.
“You’re going to have to mask it, watch for that!” The verb “masdakiser” has certainly not yet entered the dictionary, but perhaps you have already heard this phrase from one of your young colleagues or relatives? Having become an essential reference for an entire generation on TikTok, the expression comes from the pseudonym of the influencer Masdak.
On the platform, he publishes short videos several times a week, sketches in which his character demands his due from a boss, an owner or an administration. With hundreds of thousands, even millions of views, his videos popularized the term “masdakize”, which could be defined as “getting someone to respect my rights”.
Filling gaps and guiding
“There are big gaps in the law among people, who don’t know how to do research to access their rights”estimates the star influencer with 2.8 million subscribers on TikTok to franceinfo to explain his success. “Everyone can be faced with a dispute, but not everyone knows where to turn to have access to their rights”, he raises. The 30-year-old started on TikTok talking about finance but quickly shifted to videos on law, seeing the popularity of his videos dealing with banking law.
Among his most recent videos, we find explanations on the difference between gross salary and net salary, the payment of wages in cash or even the deposit of rent.
“It works quite well because I’m talking about everyday disputes.”
“I asked for 10 days whereas when I applied, I had 6.5. Leave validated!”welcomes for example a subscriber to Masdak, in the comments of a video on the days of splitting.
Masdak, a graduate of a master’s degree in banking and financial law, emphasizes that his videos have not “not intended to deal with individual contentious situations”. The influencer encourages “everyone to check if [ses vidéos] apply to his case, to do research and to contact a lawyer if necessary. What he says in his videos “is not necessarily false, but it sometimes lacks details”believes Bérénice Bauduin, teacher and researcher specializing in social law at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. “It has to be entertaining, clear and fast”which sometimes requires “not to go into all the specifics”recognizes Masdak.
In the comments of the influencer’s videos, his subscribers sometimes share of their disappointment at not having been able to assert their rights as presented in the video. “With experience, we know that in business it doesn’t necessarily happen like in these videos”insists Céline Verzeletti, confederal secretary of the CGT in charge of youth. “There is a relationship of subordination between the employee and the employer”explains the trade unionist, who advises young people to turn to a union so as not to take risks alone in front of their boss. “Knowing your rights is one thing, enforcing them is another”, she warns. Céline Verzeletti, who discovered Masdak on TikTok, however, welcomes the influencer’s videos, which “have the merit of making young people discover their rights”. Because “If we don’t know our rights, we can’t ask that they be applied”.
Lawyers invest in TikTok
Seeing the growing demand for legal content on TikTok, several accounts using the format popularized by Masdak have flourished in recent months on the platform. Some are even run by practicing lawyers. “TikTok has become the search engine of the new generation. If young people have a legal question, they will look on TikTok, so that’s the place to be”explains MaitreBem, more than 700,000 subscribers, who regularly answers questions during lives which attract several hundred people. “I allow litigants access to the law, to legal knowledge, in an educational manner”welcomes the lawyer, who was chosen to be part of the LearnSurTikTok program, aimed at rebalancing the content present on the platform.
Another lawyer, Inès Demmou, 30, has even chosen to devote herself full time to the platform. “What works best is what concerns work and housing”, she explains. His channel, Inesetledroit, has more than 200,000 subscribers on TikTok and the same number on Instagram. One of his latest videos, entitled “Your employer can he force you to repay an overpayment of salary? alone has 1.7 million views. “I think there is a real interest, and perhaps even a need, for legal education content on TikTok”estimates Inès to explain the success of her videos, 45% of views of which are made by users aged 18 to 24.
“It’s difficult to know your rights. There are plenty of sites that exist, but finding out requires thinking about going to these sites, knowing that they exist”notes Inès. “On TikTok, I bring law to people without them having to go looking for itshe continues, in a role of relay between the law and the younger generations”. A transmission role traditionally carried out by other bodies such as unions, which encounter difficulties in reaching young workers, who are increasingly confined to precarious contracts.
“It’s certainly more difficult for us to meet precarious workers.”recognizes Lydie Nicol, national confederal secretary in charge of youth policies at the CFDT. To touch the youngest generations, the first union in France is also present on TikTok. “We launched a format called ‘The minute of your rights’”, argues the trade unionist. With just over 3,700 subscribers, the CFDT is still far from the figures of Masdak and others, but the approach is different. For Lydie Nicol, the challenge is to offer young people “a framework for collective action rather than individual complaints”.