Let’s not kid ourselves about TikTok

Before Vine’s die-hard fans said goodbye, they wanted to reminisce. The short video app, which shut down in 2017, created plenty of viral moments (“And they were roommates …”) and propelled a number of Internet creators into the mainstream. It was unlike anything else on the internet at the time: You can still sometimes see the refrain “RIP Vine” thrown around on social media. But for the most part, everyone has moved on. Two of Vine’s biggest stars, Logan Paul and Shawn Mendes, are still very famous.

I immediately thought of Vine this morning when the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent or face a US ban. After I saw the news, I checked TikTok. The app was a hotbed of nostalgia, with many users reposting their earliest videos from several years ago. The ruling is the latest twist in the ongoing saga of the app’s fate: For more than four years, TikTok has been dogged by questions about its ties to the Chinese government. Unless there is a last minute intervention – still possible! – the app could conceivably close on Sunday. (After the Supreme Court’s ruling, Joe Biden’s administration announced it would leave enforcement of the ban to Donald Trump.)

Read: The internet is TikTok now

That’s a lot of fanfare and excitement over an app that just isn’t that important. There is no doubt that TikTok has had a significant impact on American culture. Its kitschy trends, with names like “coastal granny,” influence the stores Americans shop at and the products they buy. Why were Stanley cups suddenly everywhere last year? Blame it on TikTok. Artists are encouraged to create music that can trigger a dance challenge on the app. This is part of what TikTok does well: Its algorithm serves users ultra-personalized content, which increases engagement.

But while Americans may listen to music or buy clothes made with TikTok in mind, a majority of them aren’t rolling the app itself. According to one Pew survey released last year, only a third of American adults said they had ever used TikTok. YouTube touches far more Americans, with 83 percent of adults reporting that they use the platform. Although TikTok is often referred to as The Gen Z app, a larger proportion of 18- to 29-year-olds are on Snapchat and Instagram.

To some extent, TikTok users seem at peace knowing they have other options. Few people have flocked to Capitol Hill to protest the ban. For the most part, celebrities don’t speak out about how serious the stakes of a TikTok blackout could be. Online, people express their dismay with sardonic humor: crying goodbye to the hypothetical “Chinese spy” who has allegedly been observing their TikTok behavior all these years. Millions have downloaded another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu, whose name translates to “little red book” in English.

Read: It’s just an app

TikTok would be the first major social media platform to face an outright ban in the US, but its demise would not be so unknown. Even aside from Vine, Millennials and Gen X users spent their youth on platforms that also one day just disappeared or otherwise became unrecognizable. Tumblr went through a series of changes that destroyed the once thriving blogging platform. Users eventually find new homes elsewhere: Facebook overtook MySpace, only to cede its cultural cache to Instagram, and TikTok itself absorbed Musical.ly. It’s all part of the larger migration cycle that has always defined social media. The same will probably be the case with TikTok. So many social platforms have already written from the app and have similar algorithmic feeds that keep you scrolling. As Hana Kiros wrote yesterday: “The app may be banned in the US, but we will still live in the world of TikTok.”

This does not mean that a TikTok ban would not be felt. Influencers with large TikTok followings will have to compete for attention on other platforms that may have different audiences and mechanisms for success. Small business owners in particular may suffer significantly. Restaurants are a viral video away from waking up to a line down the street, a designer just a hashtag away from selling out their new product. The app’s boon for businesses has been backed by the TikTok Shop through which users can directly purchase items featured in the videos on their feed. Those who went all in on TikTok will certainly take a hit when they try to set up elsewhere online, but in all likelihood they will recover.

When I opened TikTok this morning, many of the videos users reposted as a farewell to the app featured trends I barely remembered from the early pandemic: morning routines soundtracked by Powfu’s 2020 song “Death Bed” and excessive lip-syncing to anime. These videos are a testament to how fast the internet is moving forward. In a few years, TikTok’s most defining moments, like Vine’s catchphrases and Tumblr’s protagonists, will be largely forgotten.