Reddit Shuts Down Dubsmash, a Once-Viral TikTok Competitor

A viral app where teens post videos of themselves dancing and lip syncing to hit songs will shut down Tuesday. It’s not called TikTok.

Dubsmash, launched in 2014, may be remembered as an earlier and ultimately much less successful version of TikTok, the global short-form video phenomenon. After Dubsmash took off with teens and musicians alike in the mid-to-late 2010s, Reddit Inc. acquired the app in December 2020. Now, not much more than a year later, Reddit is shutting down Dubsmash after absorbing much of its functionality.

In the early years of Dubsmash, celebrities flocked to the app. In 2015, Rihanna teased the release of her single “B---- Better Have ...