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 grasp its colossal impact on my life. It wasn’t until I began to mentally chronicle my early days on the app that I realized the full scope of what we would be losing.
I swore to myself I’d never download TikTok. It was late in 2018, about the time the Chinese-owned app had merged with Musical.ly and the promotion for the app became inescapable, especially on YouTube. It felt like TikTok was being forced down my throat, which made me detest it even more.
I eventually caved to the aggressive marketing in early 2019, but I swore to myself I wouldn’t create an account (another promise I’d go back on). What I found in my initial time on the app was something I hadn’t really seen before. There was a certain ease and approachability to it. It was like a long form of Vine’s six-second comedy skits (if you can call 15 to 30 seconds “long form”).
My For You Page at the time was filled with relatable videos set to snippets of songs and video game audio. There were references to popular media that, at times, surprised me with their niche-ness. And the content never seemed to end. The app’s infinite scroll kept me enthralled for hours at a time, often at the expense of my school work and sleep.
I kept my presence on the app a relative secret to those around me. I’d even join them as they spewed their discontent for the app and those on it knowing I’d spend every evening under my blankets, scrolling endlessly.
There’s no real explanation as to why there was so much shame in being on TikTok in its early days. It could possibly be blamed on Gen Z’s aversion to anything “cringe” or unfamiliar, or the exhaustion of having to keep up with another social media app. All that is funny in retrospect given that 60% of the app users are of Generation Z, born between 1997 to 2012.
Tell us:Parents, do you limit access to social media and technology or let it fly? Let us hear from you.
TikTok cemented its cultural impact from the beginning
The early days of TikTok felt like one big inside joke. It wasn’t until COVID-19 that the masses joined in. TikTok provided a sense of community amid the isolation of the pandemic.
The algorithmically charged For You Page turned the app’s 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. The D’Amelios even landed a Hulu show and Easterling, better known as Addison Rae, has since embarked on a rather interesting music career.
Artists like Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat saw success as 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 to the app like Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon, Mariah Carey and Jared Leto. TikTok also started testing advertisements on the app around that same time by launching a five-second GrubHub ad. They began launching more personal ads in 2022. Many people, myself included, 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. (Anyone remember Barbz for Bernie? IYKYK.)
Opinion:Sure, let’s ban TikTok and pretend our data will magically be safe. Smh.
It wasn’t long until TikTok’s novelty wore off
But soon after, the novel sheen of TikTok’s infancy had begun to dull. The effects of hyperpersonalized algorithms, infinite content, the itch for virality and profit at the expense of everything else began to eat away at what made the app enjoyable in the beginning.
TikTok changed the way we interact with information online. Where the internet was once a tool to seek out information, TikTok’s incredibly sophisticated and highly personalized algorithm inundates us with it. Constantly consuming so much information causes desensitization and lulls us into passivity.
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The user specificity of TikTok’s algorithm makes the app uniquely poised in the social media market. But these algorithms create echo chambers and microcosms that don’t reflect the sheer vastness of the internet. This creates division and can lead, as we’ve seen, to political polarization.
The infinite amount of content created, political or otherwise, feeds infinite fodder to TikTok’s ever-spinning discourse mill. But the app isn’t conducive to thoughtful conversation; it rewards bite-sized clapbacks over layered analysis.
The pressure that users feel to create content is bolstered 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 subjects of public scrutiny. There’s little shame in oversharing or intentionally getting folks riled up through rage bait and bigoted content when there’s money to be made or notoriety to gain. Engagement is engagement.
In September 2023, TikTok launched its e-commerce feature, TikTok Shop. What began 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, advertisements for the TikTok Shop would turn the app into a mobile QVC where every other video is persuading you to make an unnecessary purchase, further fueling our culture’s overconsumption obsession.
Its infinite scroll feature has been replicated by every other social media app. The quippy and dopamine-boosting style videos the app’s algorithm rewards eat away at our attention span.
We see the havoc TikTok has wreaked on our society. We watch the effects take hold in real time: rampant misinformation, screen-addicted teens and a total undoing of the social contract. But our cyber Stockholm syndrome keeps us coming back, ever looking to be entertained. Or simply to pass the time.
ByteDance trial, TikTok ban reveal scary future of technology and mass communication
There’s been concern over the intentions of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance based in Beijing, and whether the app poses a threat to national security and data privacy. The particular concern with ByteDance is almost nonsensical given that Mark Zuckerberg is bouncing in and out of congressional hearings due to concerns about Meta’s handling of user data privacy.
It’s also no shock that Zuckerberg, and the social media platforms he owns, are already pledging allegiance to the Trump regime.
With the future of TikTok in jeopardy, I struggle to reckon with what shape the social media landscape will take in its absence. Remnants of TikTok will obviously remain in 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 gaze spitefully toward RedNote, another Chinese social media app. But it’s only a matter of time before the United States finds a way to ban that, too ‒ perhaps after naive American users face Chinese censorship for the first time and realize the grass isn’t always greener.
Others may take this as an opportunity to unplug 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 the dissemination of information.
Many will feel the financial brunt of the end of the Creator Fund, which was a source of passive, and life-changing, income for many. We’ve seen how targeted content on social media can sway the politics of the 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 online communication will be clouded with state-aligned censorship.
This country was a completely different place when I first joined TikTok, and it will be completely different when it’s gone.
Kofi Mframa is a columnist and digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. He will probably be counting the popcorn on his ceiling now that TikTok is banned.
