The secret behind the TikTok CEO’s hoodie: ‘Imitate’ Mark Zuckerberg, implicitly sending a wise message to relieve the company

Tram Ho

Bí mật đằng sau chiếc áo hoodie của CEO TikTok: ‘Bắt chước’ Mark Zuckerberg, ngầm gửi thông điệp khôn ngoan giải vây cho công ty - Ảnh 1.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before the US Congress on Thursday to face questions about the risk of Chinese government influence over its popular social network. So what “armor” did CEO Chew use for this fight? The answer is: A navy blue suit, accented with a white shirt and a blue tie.

The above cautious attire makes Mr. Chew look like many technology business leaders who have recently testified before Congress about the safety and reliability of their businesses. That way of dressing makes them more believable, or at least this is innocuous.

However, the WSJ found that, as much as CEO Chew adheres to the general business dress code before Congress, he uses a different, completely boring and techno-savvy tactic when communicating. saved with a user on TikTok 2 days ago: He wears a hoodie.

In the minutes-long video posted on the company’s TikTok account, Chew wears a navy blue hoodie with a cap identical to the one Mark Zuckerberg once wore. Although Chew runs TikTok from Singapore, he apparently arrived in Washington by direct flight from Silicon Valley.

In Silicon Valley, he wears jeans, a sweatshirt, and a white T-shirt just like other inspirational tech CEOs.

“This is how to dress like Mark Zuckerberg,” said Dan Ives, a managing director and analyst in the technology field. According to Ives, the hoodie could be an attempt to show that Chew is “an easy-going Silicon Valley CEO” and that TikTok is “just like Facebook, we just happen to be a Chinese-owned company.”

In the clip on TikTok, Chew says his company’s app has 150 million users in the US, which is nearly half the population of the country.

Since taking over as CEO in 2021, the 40-year-old has remained tight-lipped, giving only a few interviews and rarely appearing on the TikTok platform. This is completely different from Zuckerberg – a familiar face to the media.

Therefore, it should be noted that in his first real introduction to the Americans, Chew chose to dress exactly like his colleagues.

Ever since Zuckerberg first appeared in a gray hoodie a few decades ago, we’ve become accustomed to founders in simple, everyday outfits.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in recent years, at business summits, attendees have become more comfortable wearing more idiosyncratic clothing.

“That outfit didn’t feel popular,” said Lauren Rothman, a Washington-based dress expert for politicians and businessmen, of Mr. Chew’s hoodie-focused outfit. However, for the CEO of TikTok, that cliché, casual look can be seen as a strategy. The thin fleece jacket and jeans seem to mean: “Don’t be afraid of me! You’ve seen a bunch of tech people like me before.”

Although Mr. Chew’s company is being painted as a national security threat, Chew’s image makes it easy to assume that the CEO of technology is the same. Chew’s safety suit is an attempt to say that both he and TikTok are harmless.

“The hoodie makes him look more modest, like he doesn’t pose a threat to national security,” said Laura Huang, an expert at Northeastern University. “And that being said, the company he’s CEO of isn’t a threat at all.”

Source: WSJ

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