I think that is the core to its success (and was for Vine). Instagram became a platform for people to promote themselves or some product and people are fully aware of that nowadays.
Tik Tok isn't free from toxic behavior or those problems with insta-models and travel vloggers by any means, but my impression has been that it's a surprisingly friendly and welcoming community, especially compared to a lot of other social networks
None of that says "real" to me. It was all about showing how happy and successful they were.
On Instagram there is a tendency to push for that one perfect photo, on tiktok it looks like there is more a push for content. (obviously there is a continuity between them)
Especially with the "reply" functionality (I don't know how it is called, but you can reply to other users's video by making your own video that will appear the the side) the posts are often in the style of commentary.
In terms of online persona, on tiktok it is almost natural to post a video of your pimples/acne as funny video while on IG it would feel strongly out of place.
In a sense it is very pure; it is not about anything specific and, more importantly, it is not about showing a fake, happy, successful version of yourself.
While I am too old to participate in it, as a medium it looks more healthy in term of living with your online persona (compared to insta-models and travel vlogging).
> It's cool but it's not what's going to create a account on it.
The reason to create an account would be not to watch videos but to make videos. In that tiktok feels a bit like a teenager version of a twitter, youtube chimera.