The obvious thing to talk about today is TikTok going dark in the U.S. There it was—the pop-up message, promising that the incoming administration would work to bring it back. A whole conversation in itself. But that’s not why we’re here today.
As an aging millennial—apparently disconnected from the cool kids and, fortunately, unaddicted to the app—I’m unaffected. But that doesn’t mean I’m uninterested. The cultural impact of TikTok, its democratizing power, and the way it has reshaped lives (for better and worse) deserve a closer look.
Like every other major platform of our era, TikTok is a marketplace for scams, a hyper-personalized shopping mall, and a voyeuristic peek into the lives of people you’d never otherwise encounter. It’s also an algorithmic marvel, fine-tuned to serve up precisely what keeps you scrolling. That level of precision? Worth studying. But no, that’s not today’s focus either.
Opening the app this morning came with a disheartening banner announcing the enactment of the ban Donald Trump threatened 4 years ago
Because despite all the criticisms, TikTok delivered something rare: a true digital town square. The one we thought we were getting with Twitter. It reflected back who we were, and whether we drowned in it or used it responsibly was up to us. It shaped language, influenced culture, and—here’s the kicker—made us reliant instead of resourceful.
And now? TikTok is “banned.” Except it’s not. It’s still right there, easily accessible.
The internet used to be a playground for digital explorers. A previous generation prided itself on knowing how to find anything, access everything, and bypass whatever hurdles were thrown in their way. But today? My feed is flooded with people acting like it’s over. Like a movement can just end overnight because an app is pulled from the App Store.
Really? That easy?
It took me less than a minute to open my laptop, log in, and continue as if nothing had happened.
I don’t know how I should feel about that. It reminds me of how, when you leave a job, it only takes a few months before you forget all the systems and processes you once knew by heart. That’s what’s happened here. We’ve been on TikTok for almost a decade, and in that time, we forgot how the internet actually works.
Update: Just as this post was being published, TikTok was permitted to continue operations in the United States, terms of the deal are unknown other than incoming President Donald Trump enacted it. I know a finesse when I see one.
The ability to find information has been replaced by the skill of gaining attention.
I used TikTok sparingly—enough to get what I needed but never enough for the algorithm to truly know me. I escaped the addiction, but I benefited from the culture. Now, the U.S. is facing a wake-up call: it has to remember how to discover, how to cultivate, how to make independent decisions again.
That would be my hope. But in reality? A greedy president might just refill the needle, bringing back TikTok and making an entire generation feel indebted to him for returning their favorite way to waste time.
