TikTok is a staple app for Americans to be able to express their creativity and become an influential person of interest easily. TikTok is an app that was originally adapted from the popular lip-syncing and dancing app, Musical.ly. TikTok was available in the App Store starting on August 2, 2018, however, did not become popular until 2019, where different trends like the VSCO girl and “painting calculators” trends were developed. TikTok has been an outlet for millions of Americans whether it be to expand their businesses through the introduction of the TikTok shop, to make educational content using the STEM feature added into the app, or simply to entertain others and make them smile with skits about everyday life or funny limericks and jokes to laugh at. Tik Tok’s scrolling from video to video on a “For You” page is an addictive feature about the app that causes people to lose track of time and feel the need to continuously scroll, however, TikTok realizes this and have implanted features in their app to give users ads to inform them they’ve been scrolling for a while and asking them to use breathing exercises or suggests a break from social media, representing their care for their users. This quality of the app was adopted by many other social media platforms, including Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Netflix Laughs & Giggles, and many more. TikTok has helped so many regular people quit their regular 9-to-5 monotony and be able to truly do something they’ve always wanted to do and receive opportunities to shine that seemed impossible before. However, in March of 2024, the U.S. government and Congress voted to ban TikTok because of the possible foreign threat of the Chinese developers looking through the apps “filters” and gathering American information and data. TikTok users genuinely did not believe the TikTok ban was going to happen because of the perpetuity of people rumoring that TikTok will be banned for many years. The app is set to black-out for users on January 19th, and with the deadline drawing closer, people who enjoy the app are beginning to realize the severity of the ban. People are taking different approaches to coping with the ban. People are migrating to different apps similar to TikTok, like Neptune or Lemon8 while others are desperately signing petitions to try and overturn the TikTok ban. On Monday, Senator Ed Markey proposed a bill to Congress to extend the TikTok by 270 days, eminently delaying the ban. Unfortunately, this bill failed and the outlook for TikTok isn’t looking good. The TikTok ban can drastically impact people’s livelihood and take away experiences for people who are unknown to be able to share with others. However, TikTok users continued to persevere and sign petitions and spread awareness to try and delay the ban as much as possible before they lose the app forever.
