The Supreme Court has upheld a law that could ban TikTok in the United States. With so much uncertainty surrounding the app’s future here, I haven’t been able to fathom its colossal impact on my life. It wasn’t until I started mentally picturing my early days on the app that I realized the full extent of what we were about to lose.
I swore to myself that I would never download TikTok. It was late 2018, around the time the Chinese-owned app had merged with Musical.ly, and promoting the app became inevitable, especially on YouTube. It felt like TikTok was being forced down my throat, which made me hate it even more.
I finally succumbed to the aggressive marketing in early 2019, but I swore to myself that I would not create an account (another promise I would go back on). What I found in my initial time with the app was something I hadn’t really seen before. There was a certain ease and approach to it. It was like a long form of six-second Vine comedy sketches (if you can call 15 to 30 seconds “long form”).
My page for you at the time was filled with similar videos set to snippets of songs and video game audio. There were references to popular media that, at times, surprised me with their characterization. And the content never seemed to end. The app’s endless scrolling kept me enthralled for hours, often at the expense of my schoolwork and sleep.
I kept my presence on the app a relative secret to those around me. I would even join them as they vented their displeasure about the app and those on it knowing that I would spend every evening under my blankets, endlessly scrolling.
There’s no real explanation as to why there was so much shame in being on TikTok in the early days. Perhaps it can be blamed on Gen Z’s aversion to anything “scary” or unknown, or the exhaustion of having to keep up with yet another social media app. It’s all funny in retrospect considering that 60% of the app’s users are Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012.
Tell us:Parents, do you limit access to social media and technology or let it fly? Let’s hear from you.
TikTok cemented its cultural influence early on
The early days of TikTok felt like a big inside joke. Only COVID-19 joined forces. TikTok provided a sense of community amid the isolation of the pandemic.
The algorithmically loaded For You page turned app users into stars. In 2020 alone, top users like Charli and Dixie D’Amelio and Addison Easterling amassed tens of millions of followers and gained cultural prominence. D’Amelios even got a Hulu show and Easterling, better known as Addison Rae, has since launched a pretty interesting music career.
Artists like Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat saw success after their songs were used as popular dance trends on the app. TikTok’s overwhelming influence on the music industry as a whole continues today.
2019 also saw an influx of celebrities on the app such as Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon, Mariah Carey and Jared Leto. TikTok also began testing in-app advertising at the same time as launching a five-second GrubHub ad. They started launching more personal ads in 2022. Many people, including myself, marked this as the beginning of the end.
Amid the chaos of 2020, TikTok became a place for young activists to discuss pressing political issues like racism and police brutality. Political activism found a healthy place on TikTok, so much so that its effects could be felt in the months leading up to the presidential election. (Does anyone remember Bernie’s Barbz? IYKYK.)
Opinion:Sure, let’s stop TikTok and pretend our data will magically be safe. Smh.
It wasn’t long until the novelty of TikTok wore off
But soon after, the novel glow of TikTok’s infancy had begun to fade. The effects of hyper-personalized algorithms, endless content, the itch for virality and profit at the expense of everything else began to eat away at what made the app enjoyable to begin with.
TikTok changed the way we interact with information online. Where the internet used to be a tool to search for information, TikTok’s highly sophisticated and highly personalized algorithm floods us with it. The constant consumption of so much information causes desensitisation and lulls us into inactivity.
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The user specificity of TikTok’s algorithm makes the app uniquely positioned in the social media market. But these algorithms create echo chambers and microcosms that don’t reflect the immensity of the Internet. This creates division and can lead, as we have seen, to political polarization.
The endless amount of content created, political or otherwise, feeds endless fodder to TikTok’s ever-moving mill of discourse. But the app isn’t conducive to thoughtful conversation; it rewards bite-sized applause over layered analysis.
The pressure users feel to create content is reinforced by the Creator Fund, which pays creators based on their views and engagement. So much of the app’s content is created with virality, or a futile attempt to achieve it, as the goal. Everything else is collateral.
Personal lives become subject to public scrutiny. There’s little shame in intentionally spreading or angering people with rage baiting and bigoted content when there’s money to be made or fame to be gained. Commitment is commitment.
In September 2023, TikTok launched its e-commerce feature, TikTok Shop. What started as a way for small businesses to expand their reach became a place for dropshippers to sell cheap products for even cheaper prices.
If the ads on TikTok weren’t already annoying, the ads for the TikTok Store would turn the app into a mobile QVC where every other video is convincing you to make an unnecessary purchase, further fueling our culture’s overconsumption obsession.
Its infinite scrolling feature has been replicated by every other social media app. Hilarious, dopamine-boosting style videos, the app’s algorithm rewards eat up our attention span.
We see the havoc TikTok has wreaked on our society. We watch the effects unfold in real time: rampant misinformation, screen-addicted teenagers, and a total undoing of the social contract. But our cyber Stockholm syndrome keeps us coming back, always looking to have fun. Or just to pass the time.
ByteDance Trial, TikTok Ban Reveals Scary Future of Technology and Mass Communication
There have been concerns over the intentions of TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, and whether the app poses a threat to national security and data privacy. The particular concern with ByteDance is almost meaningless given that Mark Zuckerberg is bouncing in and out of congressional hearings over concerns about Meta’s handling of user data privacy.
It’s also no shocker that Zuckerberg and the social media platforms he owns are already pledging allegiance to the Trump regime.
With TikTok’s future in jeopardy, I try to think what shape the social media landscape will take in its absence. The remnants of TikTok will undoubtedly remain on platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, futile attempts to replicate TikTok’s interface and unique success. But I don’t think it can be replaced.
Some look wistfully at RedNote, another Chinese social media app. But it’s only a matter of time before the United States finds a way to stop that, too—perhaps after naive American users encounter Chinese censorship for the first time and realize that the grass isn’t always greener.
Others may use this as an opportunity to disengage altogether.
What I do know is that attempts to control the medium are attempts to control the message. TikTok has been a crucial tool for political organizing and information dissemination.
Many will feel the financial burden of the recent Creator Fund, which was a source of passive and life-changing income for many. We have seen how targeted content on social media can influence the politics of an electorate or place certain messages over others. I fear we may be entering the dark ages of mass media, where vigilance will be more than a necessity and where internet communication will be covered by state-linked censorship.
This place was a completely different place when I first joined TikTok, and it will be a completely different place when it’s gone.
Kofi Mframa is a columnist and digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. He’ll probably count the popcorn on his ceiling now that TikTok is banned.
