If everything has gone according to plan, TikTok will be no more. The famed video app said that they will go dark on Sunday following the news of restrictions within the United States. For those in power, this feels like the logical conclusion following years of controversies including senate hearings that resorted to belittling TikTok’s founder with racist rhetoric. This has been a long time coming with the end being threatened every three or so months. For a time, it was a joke. Nobody could take down TikTok. It wasn’t like Vine which would just go under the minute somebody twisted its arm.
And yet, if everything has gone according to plan, TikTok is no more. I will look at my phone for the first time since 2020 and not be able to open “the clock app” and see those videos that gave me endless hours of joy. It connected me to communities and opened my mind to new ideas. Because of TikTok, the world has felt more open and limitless in ways it hadn’t in 2019. To put it simply, TikTok has gotten a bad rap.
For years now, I’ve contemplated writing an essay defending TikTok for what value I thought it had. As a 35-year-old Millennial, I am aware that I am not in the target demographic. There are times when I log on and realize this was made for Gen-Z who were in high school or early college and chased trends. It was a place to test ideas. As a Millennial, TikTok should feel juvenile because in some respect it always ways. Every day I was there I saw young people manipulate political arguments with sound clips that were idiosyncratic. I was watching them argue through text while audio samples of The Backyardigans played underneath. It seems fun at first but slowly you realize it’s all novelty. You know when The Backyardigans played on Nickelodeon? 2004. When I was 15. These are not my people. They’re Bella Poarch lip synching to music while Charlie D’Amelio comes under fire for appropriating dance moves and OnlyJayus gets caught up in a cancellation storm. TikTok was not my app.
And yet I felt the need to say a few words in light of today’s more than likely events. As the years have gone on and we’ve returned to a post-lockdown America, I have been on there less. Whereas I’d log at least four hours a day between 2020 and 2021 just addictively swiping to the next video, I’ve gone weeks without checking in. Every time I went on, I was reminded not of the toxicity that has caught on with mainstream reporting, but the people who were using it like any other social media. They were expressing themselves in ways that only naïve teenagers can. I’ve watched their post-lockdown years with enthusiasm as they’ve been able to follow their dreams and have more of a start on their careers. While TikTok still feels very impersonal to me, the few people I followed were genuine and did what they could to transcend the artifice. It came to where they could stitch videos and reflect the type of growth that you take for granted. Given how many montages I’ve watched in the past few days of creators highlighting their journeys, it has been more endearing than it should.
The recent deactivation of my Twitter has made me more self-conscious to our relationship with media. I am at a phase where everything feels superfluous, like it could be taken away in a moment’s notice. I think what hurts with TikTok is that I notice how many creators are likely to lose income from what they built. Beyond the sentiments of being the short video website that everybody ripped off, it feels like a great loss to Gen-Z identity as something that felt distinctly theirs. Much like how I felt following Myspace’s server crash in the early 2010s, you don’t realize how much you’ll miss until it’s gone. Even if I wasn’t necessarily the type to use TikTok regularly, I’m saddened by not having that quick distraction, that ability to tap into like-minded individuals discussing topics that interest me.
And yet, that’s how life is. Even if it never garnered the backlash that it did, TikTok would go the way of the more apolitical Vine. People would get bored and move onto the next thing as Gen Alpha comes of age. There are limitations to TikTok that make it unattractive for people wanting to expand their potential and make art that feels more challenging. It’s for the laidback crowd who want to hang out and have casual chats. That, and doing livestreams where women react to every emoticon like an automaton for whatever reason.
Don’t expect me to give qualms about how TikTok was a utopia of modern innovation. While I think that the algorithm is among the most glorious mysteries I’ve ever witnessed, there’s a lot that has contributed to “brain rot” and a general sense of moral decay. The much maligned “TikTok Music” moniker is deserving of criticism for preferring catchy hooks over greater song craft. The short attention span is also a concern. I’d even argue that anyone who gets their news exclusively from TikTok is a tragic figure, if just because I believe in the value of journalistic integrity and vetting. While you’ll get some upstanding commentators like Erin Reed, there are those spreading misinformation and manipulating the algorithm to get harmful rhetoric pushed to the front page. I’ve long been aware that the site is biased to attractive people and (unless this has changed) more Anglocentric appearances. There are a lot of complaints…
And yet, I don’t think TikTok is this devil website. With the public conversation around “dead internet theory” and concern over A.I., it’s important to state the obvious. The internet as a larger concept is flawed. While we can connect to each other more than ever, we also find technological advancements coming up short because their creators (humans) are flawed. There is no way to make the perfect app. It will always fall short. I was hesitant for years to join Instagram because I was caught up in psychology studies of how it created body image disorders and the overall structure correlated appearance to public validation. Twitter and Facebook have always had issues with people sharing opinions beyond the more dangerous hate speech. I personally also blame Twitter for accelerating the public need for immediate gratification more than any other website of the past 15 years. Even YouTube’s accessibility means that people can consume misogynistic and queerphobic commentators with ease (not to mention the infamous Q’Anon cases). What I’m saying is every website has its own unique flaws. TikTok is not special. It’s no worse than anything else that has become part of daily life in the past 25 years. What you put into these malleable websites is what you get out of it. That is also why I’m keen on supporting media literacy as an academic requirement in schools.
I’m not going to lose a lot from TikTok. I never posted a video and the relationships I formed there were either so casual that I forgot about them or I found their accounts elsewhere. While I still have enough affection for certain creators to have jumped over to Rednote just to see where they go, I doubt that it will have the same emotional impact. Most social media feels insignificant to me now. Maybe that’s the side effect of aging and watching the powers that be go mad with power while not appearing any more satisfied. It’s seeing the platforms that defined the past 15 years of my life corrode from get rich quick schemes like A.I. and bots. TikTok never felt disingenuous in the ways that every website I’ve mentioned has. Maybe it’s because of how I used it, but I was less likely to get some conservative agitprop than listen to autistic women talk about “Dinovember.” It was just easier to blame TikTok because it wasn’t American and thus less tied to some rah-rah patriotism that is making the rounds lately.
When I was at the height of TikTok use, I felt alone without any greater sense of identity. 2020 was a year that left me so depressed that I ended up dissociating for most of early 2021. One of my only escapes was watching TikTok and finding something within the stimulation. Here were people just wanting to connect and share a few thoughts. I didn’t agree with everything. I will always resent the song “Red Kingdom” because of how trolls used it to juke the stats. With that said, you go in deep enough and you find people being genuine. They just want to have fun and express ideas. Yes, I did use it to expand awareness of neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ creators. I anticipated every new video from Ben Brainard, Youth Pastor Ryan, B-MO, and CallMeKris. A lot of creativity existed just underneath the surface. I never quite got on the side where trends were popping off, but then again that’s been my life.
I’m sure something will replace TikTok in the not too distant future. It can be seen already in Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or Facebook… videos (sorry, I don’t know what they’re called). The impact has definitely been seen. I’m doubting that Rednote is going to blow the roof off the market, but only time will tell.
As I write this, it is the Saturday before everything is set to happen. For as impersonal as the loss will be, it’s hard to not state the impact that the clock app has had on me over the past four years. I love getting to meet “the alphabet mafia.” I’m not going to miss the language distortion of words like “sewer slide,” but there’s things about its unique functions that are at best going to be pale imitations going forward. I’m sure the creators who really want to create will keep finding their way. I’m sure that the people who matter will cross my path again. For now I plan to say goodbye by doing what I always did: scrolling late into the night until the limit has been reached.
I’m saddened by circumstances because of how it impacts the generation below me. Given what Millennials have lost from their youth, it’s always bittersweet to see formative touchstones not only disappear, but lack a paper trail. Because of Reels and Shorts and whatever, those videos will be somewhere out there. They’ll be just less organized. There won’t be a convenient way to recall this point in history. With the rise of A.I. threatening to make the future even more unreal, I can’t be sure what our relationship to the internet will be. To me, TikTok was a naïve, simple website that filled a void with people wanting to find community. I found it there. I hope the people wanting it in the years to come will not have to look too hard to find a new and even more exciting way.
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