“Excuse me, how many square meters do you live in?” asks a voice in a TikTok video. “More than 200,000”, answers the interlocutor, who is none other than Bruno Le Maire. With a detached air, as if he had just met the person, the Minister of the Economy agreed to introduce him to the premises. “You see, there is even a platform to accommodate a helicopter”, he describes, in designating the site of Bercy, in Paris, where its offices are located. “The last one to land there was Tom Cruise for Mission: Impossible,” he continues. The video in question met with some success, before being deleted by the videographer behind its publication last April.
Far from being new, “room tours” or “apartment tour” refer to videos presenting apartments or rooms, which have become recurrent on the platform. The hashtag “apartment” is close to a billion views, that “apartment tower” nearly 100 million, while the term “room tower” reaches 13 billion views. “This success is explained by the possibility of discovering exceptional places, there is a strong link with certain real estate series, such as “The Agency”, on Netflix, which deals with prestigious properties”, analyzes Stéphanie Laporte, founder of the Otta agency.
Videos on social networks use the codes of these popular reality shows. “Here, the viewer enters the person’s home to see directly how they live.” And questions like “Where do you live?”, “Will you show me around?” or “How much is your rent?” to start such a publication, have become daily for Internet users.
In the image, supposedly surprised passers-by, who spontaneously agree to show their homes to the “Tiktokeurs” behind the screen. Since the pandemic, this voyeurism has been growing on social networks. “There is more and more content like this, with vox pops to find out how much the interviewee earns or, for example, if they are going on vacation abroad,” lists Stéphanie Laporte.
Through these productions, very spacious homes or offices are presented by the videographers. If only in the capital, Internet users can visit by proxy the apartment of 40 square meters of a complete stranger, in the heart of Montmartre, whose rent amounts to only 600 euros.
Another possibility is the discovery of a 2,500 square meter “mansion” in the heart of the city, at more than a million euros, with moldings on the ceiling and “frescoes dating from the beginning of the 20th century”, describes the owner of the building. In total, these videos reach 10 million views. “This is one of the properties that have become very ‘instagrammable’ and which make you dream because there is a ‘wow’ effect”, insists Stéphanie Laporte.
The audience is such that the format stands out as a communication tool. Other influencers hijack the concept. Like Youtuber Natoo who, in a humorous video, caricatures the idea by presenting an apartment too small for her own size.
Others, such as content creators Richard or Anna Rvr, use it to present their new homes and the associated decoration to their subscribers curious to discover the organization. “For the influencer, it’s a way to strengthen closeness with their community and create real intimacy,” notes Stéphanie Laporte.
But these ideal dwellings camouflage another reality, that of poor housing. According to the report published in October 2022 by the Abbé Pierre Foundation, co-written with the Paris Region Institute, 1.3 million people are poorly housed in the region. To give visibility to their study, the association then decided to divert the format on TikTok.
In their housing awareness bus, inside which the Foundation has reproduced a slum, a member of the communications team presents the place as if it were his living space. In the image, the dilapidation and the smallness of the false dwelling automatically mark the spirits. “We wanted to tell the reality of the homes of many French people, especially students and retirees,” explains Hervé Le Bozec, head of digital communication at the Abbé Pierre Foundation.
And the operation works, the video has accumulated more than two million views, 2500 shares and 1500 comments. “Some people recognized themselves and the floor opened up on this subject”, notes Hervé Le Bozec, “this allowed us to reach a younger target, uninformed on these subjects, all on an entertainment platform”, he congratulates himself.
The Foundation has also teamed up with the teams of videographer Victor Habchy for a new awareness campaign on Instagram. The content creator, who often films exceptional accommodation, wanted to “deliver our messages, with respect for the person, without mentioning his name and address”, reports the head of digital communication.
In this video, a woman supported by the association shows Victor Habchy his 9 square meter home. “When it rains, the water runs behind my bed,” she begins, barely entering her tiny main room. Far from opulence, this very real home has neither ventilation nor collective heating. To the camera, the tenant shows her boxes as insulation and her toilet on the landing. “Used by 30 people,” she says. In total, the video has accumulated more than a million views.
“France has around 600,000 slums,” recalls Hervé Le Bozec. The Abbé Pierre Foundation intends to continue to use these formats to inform but “with parsimony”, he specifies. The next subject on which the association wishes to communicate concerns food insecurity.
