The potential ban of TikTok has sparked debates about the social and economic impacts. The rapid growth of the Chinese-owned company TikTok has surpassed over 1 billion users and is a comfort app for many. For millions of people around the world, TikTok isn’t just an app – it’s a place where they connect, create, and escape. However, concerns about data privacy concerns Supreme Court judges and US officials. The ban was originally pursued due to private military detail being leaked. It was later found out the information was leaked through a Minecraft server on Discord, instead of through TikTok. Despite the information being released, the course to ban TikTok continued.
The corresponding information leads to many TikTok users dreading the ban and reminiscing their favorite TikTok trends. Reese Meyer, for example, talks about her favorite trend from 2020: [AS]. [AS], known as Adult Swim, users would create ‘bumpers’ or skits to relive Adult Swim intermissions. The ban has also led to a wide spread of users attempting to bring back old trends to relive the earlier years of the social media app. Many users mourn the ceasing of such trends. Lily Vandiver, for instance, shares her thoughts on the ban:“ I think it is good in some cases that if the Chinese are stealing our information, it might, you know, be a safer option, but I can’t help but have heartache because, you know, we all grew up with TikTok and Musically, like, C’mon, there’s like so many memories that are just going to get deleted. That’s how I feel, I feel sad. I’m not downloading red page? What is it called?”
In the end, TikTok has become a safe-space for many, fabricating our lives with story times, recipes, and POV’s. With the ban of TikTok comes an end to an era.
