Admittedly, I’m not much of a TikToker, but I have many colleagues and friends who spend every waking hour watching the platform’s short-form videos. So when one of them sees a trend happening, I drop what I’m doing and start digging. What I found was something I never expected: People are ditching their iPhones for nothing phones.
After sifting through thousands of comments videos like this oneI was really surprised by some of the responses, especially the top comments. The top comment reads “I get nothing when my iPhone dies”, followed by “Charlie XCX is the model for the Nothing Phone”.
Just a few lines from that, “I’m not motivated by anything,” “I don’t have a phone for anything and it’s great,” and a lot of people are saying they’re still on the iPhone 11 and 12s and don’t want to upgrade (or update iOS).
So I knew I had to do some digging to get to the bottom of it. Didn’t anything pay people to post comments on social media to get the word out about a brand? Do artists like Charlie XCX really influence public opinion about products that much? Will anyone reading these comments really know what is going on? Nothing Phone anyway? The answers I found were surprising, but in the best way.
Samsung and when you are a small startup brand in the world apple if you control the spade, the only way to see true success is to use guerilla warfare tactics. This means more than just launching an expensive marketing campaign or getting big influencers to represent your brand (and then go back to using iPhones in their spare time). This means building a community of evangelists for you that will go to the ends of the earth.
Vogue Business In December 2025, he published an article about Nothing’s strategy and explained in detail how the company plays. TikTok regular as the main audience. In the physical world, Vogue notes, the brand opens pop-up locations and sponsors concept stores, fashion models wear their products on the runway in London and New York, and even “wear their headphones on bag belts at fashion parties.”
Nothing brought people Like Charlie Smith Leading smart new marketing campaigns that play on the company’s “irreverent, slightly punk attitude,” in Smith’s own words. Time Nothing Phone 4a Pro after launch, the company drew its own billboards and used it to speak to users on social media in a way that other brands ignored.
So it’s no surprise to me that TikTok has seen an increase in recommendations for the Nothing brand. Although I have a vague idea of who Charlie XCX is (sorry, editors), the company end of May advertising campaign introducing him as an investor and brand ambassador certainly makes more people aware of the brand’s existence.
But it’s not just social influence and subtle messaging that drives the Nothing brand; it is also the price of its phones. Comments like “I’m sick of $1000 plus phones” are another obvious trend among these posts. The latest models of nothing cost half that and offer attractive designs and features, as well as better battery life and faster charging than the iPhone.
The first phone to be launched is nothing to moderate reviews in 2022 and was priced under £400. The Nothing phone 2 came the next year with minor improvements, but ultimately not a very exciting release. It was nothing Phone 2a In 2024, it came with an even more budget-friendly price that people started to notice. “Why would you buy anything else?” Posted by Harish Jonnalagadda of Android Central in his opinionand that sentiment seems strong today.
Plus, there’s something uniquely appealing about Nothing’s transparent, neon-glow retro style. The company first became known for its Glyph Interface, which featured a caricature of the Apple logo on the back of the Nothing Phone (1). Now its latest phones have ditched the LED strips for a dot-matrix “screen”. Nothing phone 3.
In keeping with the brand’s approach, the Glyph Matrix display on the back of this phone was bare at launch, however it’s full now with everything virtual pets to music visualizers and even an entire Pokedex.
The company has also been at the forefront of AI-powered gadgets Essential Space, Basic Programsand Basic Soundthey all debuted interesting new ideas before the big guys started doing it. Essential Apps in particular has been a huge hit with the community and is another way for Nothing to play to the group that will be driving the brand for many years to come.
Will any phone solve every iPhone user’s frustration with their phone? Probably not, but it fixes some pain points in everyday life. I have seen some posts about people They are throwing away their 2 year old flagship for a phone that is nothingseems crazy at first until you realize how much better the battery life is compared to Samsung or Apple flagships.
There are other ways you may not have considered. Two years ago, a friend of mine suffered from occasional, chronic migraines and couldn’t figure out what was causing them. I suggested it might be PWM dimming Caused it on the iPhone and sent him the Nothing Phone 2a to try, as the company uses more visible dimming techniques. After being migraine free for two years, he has only used Nothing Phones since then.
Whether the company’s latest marketing direction will continue is anyone’s best guess, but the brand has made real progress in India, the UK and the US recently, so it’s clearly appealing to people who want something different from the usual suspects. Have you ever tried a phone? Let us know what you think in the comments.
