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TikTok is launching a $500,000 live trivia contest

TikTok is launching a $500,000 live trivia contest

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The shortform video app is giving away cash prizes to trivia winners. Users can play each day between February 22nd and 26th.

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The TikTok logo on a black background with pink and blue repeating logos around the edges.
Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

TikTok is taking a page out of HQ’s playbook and launching a series of live trivia games, the company announced today. Like the doomed trivia startup, TikTok’s trivia rounds will happen via livestream each day, and users can log in to play between February 22nd and February 26th.

To entice players, TikTok is offering a $500,000 cash prize pool that’s split between winners. Users must be 18 years old and in the US to participate in the multiple-choice trivia rounds, which will be livestreamed on the official @TikTok account. Categories include lifestyle, beauty, sports, and music, according to TikTok, along with John Wick questions (the event is sponsored by Lionsgate and its upcoming film John Wick: Chapter 4).

Like HQ, TikTok has enlisted a live host for trivia, presumably to make the quizzes more of an event. James Henry, a popular TikTok creator whose skits regularly go viral on the platform, will host the trivia rounds, and players will be able to interact with him, TikTok says.

Though the trivia series is a step out of TikTok’s usual offerings, the company has been testing and working on different ways it might use the TikTok LIVE feature to generate engagement. The company encourages businesses and creators to go live on the app to “engage with their communities” and markets livestreams as a way to drive sales. It’s also introduced more advanced settings for targeting, such as giving streamers the ability to limit live videos to adults only. And the company has been trying to make livestream shopping happen in the US after finding success with the format in China and other parts of Asia.