The success of James Mangold’s non-Dylan bio-pic “A Complete Unknown” with Timothée Chalamet in the lead role, which was released in the USA three weeks ago (German cinema release: February 27th), not only reflects the streaming figures for Dylan songs Bobmania has also broken out on the video portal TikTok. Users recreate the cover of his album “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” which shows the songwriter walking down wintry Jones Street in Greenwich Village with his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo, or simply walk shivering like the songwriter in a thin suede jacket with or without Partner through snow-covered streets.
Now, a few months after his first cryptic tweets on X, Bob Dylan even has his own TikTok channel. The first post showed a series of clips from different creative phases, set to the classic songs “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “Hurricane”.
It could be that the man who has so often been a trailblazer is here – much like his last-minute submission Nobel Prize speech – is a bit late, as the platform is facing a possible shutdown in the USA. In April 2024, President Joe Biden signed a law requiring Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months or face a ban on the app. The deadline for this sale is January 19, 2025.
But maybe Bob Dylan will be out of the country in the spring anyway and, as has been his way for almost four decades, traveling around the world with his songs. It could be that the newly opened TikTok account is his way of subtly announcing a European and Asian tour in the coming months.