What is Galvanised Steel and Eco-Friendly Wood Veneers? The Tiktok-ifcation of Interior Design

As social media platforms continue to accelerate in the user base, the concept of “tiktok-ification” has become a repeated cliche in many industries. If you are an avid user of social media, the terms “galvanised square steel,” “eco-friendly wood veneers,” or even “screws borrowed from aunt” might ring a bell. 

In recent years, house design channels have started to pop up due to a meme building around a distinct character named “Little John,” who appears on screen as a generic man wearing bizarre-coloured shirts of red and green. As Henrich Henkel explores in his video, one of the key channels on TikTok that created the character is “homedesign369,” who amassed millions of followers and almost 50 million likes by mid-2024. 

The videos the channel is well-known for often include a recognizable, monochrome voiceover and a bizarre house design situation (such as a 0.1 square metre apartment). As the videos progress, Little John often finds ways to resolve these issues, primarily in correlation to the industrial materials “galvanised square steel,” “eco-friendly wood veneers,” or “expansion screws”. These materials are critical to the humour people find in these videos and allowed Little John to attain his social media tag, #littlejohn. This article will delve deeper into the merits and impacts of the “Tiktok-ification” of Interior Design. 

How was Little John created?

Delving into the history of the account “homedesign369,” which most likely started this video trend, we can see that the “Little John” concept is the product of online evolution. The account began by making regular home design videos that enlightened the audience with interior design options. After a while, the videos underwent a change when the familiar monochromatic voice-over was added. No characters have appeared in the videos yet. 

Shortly after this new change, however, we could finally see the series of changes “homedesign369” started implementing in their video. Characters were finally added and resembled the looks of the Little John we all know and love. The animations also grew much more exaggerated and abnormal to engage with the viewers’ attention, such as the characters kicking and demolishing old furniture they were trying to replace. 

These videos gained traction quickly, and soon, “homedesign369” started taking advantage of this new trend and creating even more bizarre scenarios in their videos to attract larger audiences; such scenarios might include the “accidental birth of 1 million children.” Keeping in mind that this entire evolution occurred in less than half a year, it is clear that most of these attention-grabbing changes and signs of “TikTok-ification” happened under consumer appeal and general humour.

Are they actually used in modern-day design?

To further examine the “TikTok-ification” of home design, its potential merits, and social media’s overall effect on modern industries, we must compare what Little John conveys in the videos with real-life industrial design. So, are galvanised square steel and eco-friendly wood veneer implemented in modern-day home design?

In the videos, Little John often utilised galvanised square steel to expand his minimal space. According to the National Materials Company, galvanised steel refers to a steel bar that has been coated with zinc to prevent rust and offer protection. It is, in fact, one of the most popular steels used in various industries like agriculture, solar, automotive, construction, etc., mainly due to its versatile use cases. 

Little John also usually implemented eco-friendly wood veneers as flooring and walling for his extension homes. Wood veneers are generally small and thin pieces of wood with veneers pressed into them, and the “eco-friendly” part is a little misleading. The veneers are only eco-friendly because they use less wood than ordinary wood planks. However, the good thing is that wood veneers are used in interior design, generally for wall panelling, aesthetic purposes, and as alternatives to solid wood that are less cost-effective and eco-friendly. 

Overall, the materials advocated in these Little John videos have plenty of truth behind them, which is entirely unexpected for a short “meme” video on TikTok. Considering the context of Little John’s scenarios in these videos, it also makes logical sense for him to utilise galvanised square steel and wood veneers since they are generally cost-effective materials in industrial design. 

Implications of social media’s uses and intricacies

One key reason this series of short videos became viral was its unmistakable familiarity to the viewer. Once you see a Little John video, its format, animations, and even music will become embedded in your mind, making every Little John video afterward seem much more humorous. The impacts of these videos have also extended beyond the surface of TikTok into the modern world, where numerous users associate protrusions in a building’s façade with Little John, underscoring Little John’s extensive impacts on the architectural landscape.  

Overall, the irrefutable evidence that supports the validity of Little John videos suggests that this entire “Tiktok-ification” of interior design was a happy accident. While the videos have their fair share of wacky, unhinged, and intellectually diminishing moments, the core of the content doesn’t spread much misinformation, rendering these videos successful. Going forward, the popularity of these videos will also act as a critical catalyst for more internet users and young teenagers to learn about interior design from an informal perspective, helping to spread knowledge about interior design and further popularize the actual industry. 

Works Cited

Henkel, H. (2024). The UGLY Truth Behind GALVANIZED Square Steel. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNogw5ti0Pw [Accessed 3 Sep. 2024].

marshall and marshall (2019). Galvanized Steel: Types, Uses, Benefits. [online] National Material Company - Steel Processing Facilities. Available at: https://www.nationalmaterial.com/galvanized-steel-types-uses-benefits/ [Accessed 3 Sep. 2024].

Nguyen, S. (2024). Unhinged home design: The weird animated homes built on galvanized square steel and eco-friendly wood veneers. [online] The Daily Dot. Available at: https://www.dailydot.com/pop-culture/unhinged-home-design-meme/ [Accessed 3 Sep. 2024].

‌pixable (2023). What are the most frequent uses of wood veneer? [online] Wood Avenue. Available at: https://woodavenue.co.uk/what-are-the-most-frequent-uses-of-wood-veneer [Accessed 3 Sep. 2024].