The TikTok Awards for the Middle East took place this week at The Palm Zabeel Theater in Dubai, celebrating creators across diverse genres of short-form content. The event showcased 33 award categories, with public voting determining the bronze, silver, and gold winners.
“The TikTok Awards is a global event held in every region, giving us a chance to celebrate the talent emerging from this part of the world,” said Kinda Ibrahim, General Manager of Operations for TikTok Middle East, Turkey, Africa, Pakistan, and South Asia. “These categories reflect the variety of content available on the platform, including sports, entertainment, lifestyle, and breakthrough artists.”
Recapping the top winners of the night; Yara Aziz took home the Creator of the Year award, Annan Science, was named TikTok’s Changemaker of the Year and Abir El Saghir, became TikTok’s Gold Visionary of the Year. Among the other categories shortlisted by TikTok, Emad Cooking, struck gold with the Food Creator of the Year award, while Egyptian rising artist TUL8TE claimed TikTok’s Gold Artist of the Year award.
Ibrahim said that the Awards hold high value for brands and client-side marketers as the public-voting system highlights the top creators chosen by the audience in the region.
“This is important for brands to note as it showcases the type of creativity that’s on the platform and the type of creators that are voted for to be winners in their creative fields,” Ibrahim said.
The votes came in by the masses, therefore emphasising the community engagement with regional creator content on the platform. “Millions of votes poured in from across the region, showcasing the community’s deep admiration for all the creators here tonight,” said Ibrahim.
Apart from this, the TikTok Awards also provide creators with the chance to meet with brands and potential partners in person at the event. This allows for interpersonal relationships to flourish as marketers can interact with the creators they want to collaborate with in person, and understand how content can be curated to meet brand objectives through a certain creator’s style.
“An event like this is attended by a vast audience, it’s not just creators, we have media and brands and publishers. This creates opportunities for winning way beyond these awards,” explained Ibrahim.
The Awards also hope to inspire creators to ‘create more’. “We encourage creativity that comes in all shapes and forms and genres of content. We’re not restricting creators to a specific genre,” Ibrahim said.
Creators at the Awards also echoed the strength of content put out by the region for audiences within the Middle East markets, noting that content generated by regional creators is contextually relevant to culture, language and identity.
Ebraheem Al-Samadi, CEO and founder of MyForeverRose and cast member of Netflix’s Dubai Bling, remarked on the significance of regional authenticity. “It’s very important that the content relates to the region it’s put out in,” he said. “Some things that are taboo in the Middle East are normal in Western counterparts. Creators from the region are aware of these cultural sensitivities.”
The TikTok Awards demonstrated the platform’s commitment to fostering regional talent and community engagement. By highlighting culturally relevant, audience-approved creators, TikTok hopes to continue to facilitate connections between creators, brands, and audiences in the region.
