My Last Video For TikTok

Today is the day that TikTok has been officially banned in the United States

Today it's official. TikTok has been banned in the United States. The government told TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to either sell TikTok to a US company or face a ban. ByteDance refused to sell TikTok so it got banned.

I thought TikTok was going to close down at midnight, January 19 but, instead, TikTok decided to go offline after 11 pm on January 18. Here is what my phone screen looks like now whenever I try to open the app. I get a message that says this:

Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now

A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now.

We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!

TikTok was a very popular app but the US government officials—both Democrat and Republican—found it to be a threat. They claim that TikTok takes people’s personal data for its own use. But Google, Meta, and Twitter/X do the same thing. The big difference is that the other companies are based in the US and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China. And it was those big three US companies who were most eager for a TikTok ban because TikTok had became so popular that they felt threatened by it. God forbid that these companies would actually do some research and try to learn why TikTok had become such a serious competitor and implement changes to their own platforms as a way of luring people back to their platforms. Naaahhh, that’s way too much work. Why be competitive when it’s easier to just be a monopoly where they control everything and simply use the government to crush all upstarts like TikTok.

There were also fears that TikTok poses a national security threat. But when you have people like Twitter/X owner Elon Musk trying to do everything possible to install fascist governments in countries who are among the closest allies of the US like the UK and Germany while using Twitter/X to promote his fascist aspirations for those countries, that argument regarding TikTok rings hollow. (And that’s not to mention the mystery of how a US government contractor like Musk is able to get away with his antics with little or no scrutiny. I also thought that it’s illegal for individuals to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the US like that.)

Under the Desk News has this excellent video that provides the background of this whole TikTok drama and it's a tale of congressional shenanigans. (I initially saw this video on the last night of TikTok’s existence but I'm linking to the same video that has also been posted on Instagram for obvious reasons.) The Independent Thought Substack lays out a case of why it's hypocritical for the US government to view TikTok as a threat while ignoring far more pressing problems that are impacting Americans far more than the existence of TikTok.

The biggest irony about all this is that I’ve had a love/hate relationship with TikTok. I initially downloaded it back in 2020. It was a very trying time for me. My mother lost her 12 year battle with multiple sclerosis in February. Just a few weeks after her funeral the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. We were all instructed to stay home as much as possible, wear a face mask, and practice social distancing. My social life suddenly dwindled to nothing. I saw some of my friends come down with covid. Some of them made a full recovery while there is one friend who is still dealing with long covid five years later. I had another friend with a history of heart trouble who survived covid twice only to suddenly drop dead from a heart attack in 2023 at the age of 41. My ex-husband’s step-sister’s oldest daughter died from covid in late 2020 (just a couple of months before the rollout of the new covid vaccines) at the age of 29.

Additionally I had six longtime friends who also died in 2020 of other ailments besides covid (such as pancreatic cancer and complications from diabetes). And the onetime minister of my church congregation who officiated at my wedding years ago died just a few days after my mother.

I had heard about this app called TikTok that was becoming popular but I didn’t bother with checking it out until after the pandemic arrived. I had free time on my hands so I decided to download it and see what it was all about. I half-expected for the app to not live up to its hype and I would end up uninstalling it.

So I made a few test videos and uploaded those videos on the platform. They got some views but they were nothing special. But then something strange happened. I had purchased a couple of dolls based on the ending of Disney’s Frozen 2 movie—one was Queen Anna dressed in her coronation outfit and the other was Elsa in her Snow Queen outfit. I decided to make a couple of test videos of the dolls both in their original packaging and out of the box. The Queen Anna doll didn’t get much attention. My initial video shot of Elsa still in her box also didn’t get much attention. It was only when I freed Elsa from her box and I made this video that it took off in a surprising way.

My video initially received over 1,000 views, which was the most views that any of my videos I had made attracted to date. Then it went to over 5,000 views, then 10,000 views. I was pretty shocked because all I did was rotate the doll in front of the camera. To this day that video remains my most viewed video on my TikTok account at over 75,000 views. Shortly before TikTok was shut down I saw that another person had liked that video, which isn't bad for a video that has been online for nearly five years.

After my Elsa video became very popular I shot a variety of videos for that platform where I basically played with toys or opened blind boxes. Sometimes I would make a rant about something or I would make my own attempt at a comedy sketch (which didn't do too well LOL!). None of my videos ever became as popular as that one Elsa video, and that include subsequent videos I shot where I included Elsa.

In some ways TikTok was the one bright spot in a dreary time when so many people were dying of COVID-19. I also loved the videos that other people were putting out. At first many of them were very lighthearted content that featured people doing silly dances or showing off their hobbies or doing silly comedy sketches. Those videos definitely took my mind off of the pandemic around me. I had even discovered new talent as a result of TikTok and over the past few weeks I’ve made an effort to try to follow my favorite accounts on other platforms in expectation of the TikTok ban.

As 2020 went on I discovered another use for TikTok where I saw first-hand the power of such a platform to gather users who agreed on a certain issue where they met and engaged in discussions. They even used TikTok to organize an action that carried over into real life. Once such example was when I saw videos from young people urging others to register for free tickets to an upcoming Trump rally then not show up. That actually did happen, judging from the number of rallies that had sections with empty seats.

As time went on, I began to develop a love-hate relationship with TikTok. There were accusations that TikTok tended to depress viewings of any videos featuring people of color. I believed those accusations because every time I made a video featuring one of my dolls with darker skin and uploaded it on TikTok, that video always received far fewer views than my videos featuring caucasian dolls. If the TikTok algorithm felt this way about non-white dolls, I can only imagine how it treated non-white people.

There was the heavy censorship, much of which was done by AI bots. There were too many times when TikTok had taken down one of my videos that would be allowed on other social media platforms. While you could appeal the decision, it was dicey because you never got a human to take a look at your appeal. I can count on one hand how many videos that were initially taken down but were later reinstated after I made an appeal. I found it irritating that a certain video I made was okay for the other social media platforms but ended up getting taken down on TikTok.

A few months after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine so many memes were created about the war. I tried making a video that compiled these memes and they were well received at first. But then TikTok began to take down those memes videos, which was frustrating because Instagram and YouTube were okay with me posting those videos on their platforms. I also discovered that there were Russian troll bots on TikTok who mass-reported videos that were too pro-Ukraine and TikTok’s automated bots would take those videos down. So as a parody of what I went through with TikTok, I created a series of video shorts about a pro-Russian Internet troll who posted pro-Russian content on all of the social media platforms. (For the role of the pro-Russian Internet troll I used an old teddy bear that was based on Misha, the mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.) TikTok began to censor some of those episodes as well. I tried to appeal but they were never reinstated. To this day if I need to show someone all of the videos I made in that series, I have to use this YouTube playlist because the series is completely intact.

I began to cut back on my viewings of TikTok after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 because my For You feed became inundated with video after video about the terrorist attacks followed by the Israeli bombings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. You don’t know how draining it can be to scroll through ten, twenty, or more consecutive videos on that topic and I’m someone who is concerned about what is going on in that part of the world. But it was getting to the point where scrolling through tons of violent footage felt more like I was viewing war porn or something. At least on YouTube and Instagram I can control how many videos I want to see on that topic and when I reach my tolerable limit I can opt not to click on any more videos. It’s much harder on TikTok when they push these videos in your face.

Despite my continued disenchantment with that platform, there was one really positive thing about it. The For You page was a great way of promoting my videos because I got more views for each video I did on TikTok than on both Instagram and YouTube combined. It was through the For You page that I was exposed to a variety of talented video makers and I’m now starting to follow them on other platforms because of the TikTok ban.

Another positive thing was that TikTok was literally an emotional lifeline at a time when I was alone much of the time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Making those TikTok videos literally gave me something to do other than fret about the pandemic. If it weren’t for the lighthearted videos I made on TikTok, I probably would’ve really sank into a deep depression from being alone way too much. I’ll always appreciate TikTok for being around when I needed a diversion from the illness and death that was going on around me.

While TikTok has some good and bad things about it and I’ll probably miss it for a while in the post-ban days, I’m not going to let it upset me. Over the years I’ve seen plenty of sites come and go so it’s not surprising that TikTok could be the latest site to suddenly disappear. That’s the nature of the Internet.

Here is the last video I ever made for that platform where I basically took a look back at the five years that I was on TikTok.

Despite the fact that the TikTok ban is today, there’s a possibility that it might not be the end yet. TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew will be attending Trump’s indoor inauguration tomorrow where he will sit with other tech leaders like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. So he’ll be seeing Trump become the president one day after the ban on TikTok. This is very interesting. I guess we’ll all find out soon enough as to what it all means.

And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t jumped on the RedNote bandwagon yet and that’s due to the fact that I really don’t know Chinese at all. (In terms of foreign languages, I know Spanish the best. I also know French but my French speaking skill is weak compared to Spanish. I know some German but that one is probably my weakest language compared to Spanish and French.) I do find it pretty ironic that other TikTok people have gravitated to another Chinese app and this is one that is mainly in Chinese. In fact Duolingo has had a huge increase in the number of people who have signed up for its Mandarin Chinese course just so they can navigate around RedNote.

I am surprised that more people aren’t considering Clapper as an alternative. That one has a similar interface to TikTok and it is based in the US so there is no language barrier, unlike with RedNote. (I am on Clapper myself so you can check me out there.)

I haven’t completely ruled out getting a RedNote account. I’m just going to wait and see what happens with TikTok. The next few days are going to be really interesting when it comes to TikTok’s ultimate fate.

My Substack is free to subscribe but if you want to make a comment, you’ll need to take out a paid subscription. Click on the button below for more details.