TikTok Ban 

It’s a chilly Sunday evening. As meals are enjoyed, half of America is focused on the presidential inauguration that would ensue on the following day, yet the remaining 170 million Americans had other worries, knowing that dinner-time-scrolling would no longer be the same.

Let me preface by saying throughout history we’ve seen many disasters and events that took a toll on not only us as Americans, but humanity as a whole. Hurricanes, wars, and even the more recent COVID-19, yet none can compare to the harrowing tragedy we faced on that unfortunate day: The ban of TikTok. TikTok is a “social media app that allows users to create, share, and watch short videos”, or so google says. But it’s really much more than a simple app. 

TikTok was a universal experience, one that enriched global culture to a degree more than anything could ever hope to accomplish. It guided us through so many years since its creation, and freed us from the shackles of boredom through the pandemic. Like a friend that you could count on, TikTok was always there, not as something we wanted, but something we needed, and would need for years to come. Yet all good things come to an end, and now that a law banning TikTok was passed by our gracious government, our days of bliss would come to an end.

January 18th, 2025. It’s the final day that us Americans would be able to embrace TikTok and the wonders it bestowed. In light of this depressing fate, there have been a few last-minute trends. People were “immigrating” to a new app, also owned by a Chinese company, called Red Note, and reintegrating their culture there as “TikTok refugees”, but would it really ever be the same. People made videos, saying goodbye to their “Chinese spies”, while others took upon that role themselves to greet those farewells. Amongst these trends, there was also one where famous influencers revealed secrets that they’ve harbored for a while and have decided to finally reveal now that the app was going to go. From faking certain incidents to revealing who was under your company’s mascot(what could go wrong), videos of these trends flooded user’s for-you page as we all approached our final sets of scrolls.

At around 7pm, the app “went dark” for users across the nation, and all that was left for us to mourn over was a message from TikTok, speaking about how unfortuitous the ban was, yet also giving us hope as our newly elected president vowed to bring it back. What we didn’t know was when exactly it would come back, if it would at all, and thus were left with a sense of uncertainty if we would ever experience something like it again. And just like that, the era of TikTok came to a close as night fell. But who knew that this “ban” would turn out to be one of the shortest bans we’ve ever experienced.

As Americans woke to the break of dawn, and checked their phones to see if the ban on TikTok was just a dream, confusion flooded the nation. TikTok was…back? It was bewildering. What was this app doing still functioning when we clearly saw the ban get enacted? This wonder soon turned to excitement and elation as this could only mean one thing: TikTok got unbanned!

The app was barely even banned for half a day, maybe even less, when its services were reestablished in America, and with that was immense relief. A relief that when we were bored, we no longer had to find something productive to do. At night when we needed to sleep, we could still have that 1 hour of scroll time. And a reassurance that we didn’t need to throw away our pride and resort to instagram reels as a substitute(no hate). Our years of TikTok would actually not be over, and hopefully will stay that way as Americans reunite with their beloved social media outlet whose ban, though short, was definitely filled with heartbreak.