This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Eli Casas. Find them on Instagram at @elicasasnow. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
The CEO of TikTok Shou Zi Chew has been advocating for American Users First Amendment rights before the Congress Court since March of 2023 but, despite all efforts the TikTok ban went into effect Saturday 18th around 10 PM. Luckily, in less than 24 hours TikTok became available to American users again! Although the app is back in action the algorithm seems different, many TikTok users and content creators have begun to speculate various theories.
Bye Bye TikTok
I’m an avid TikTok scroller. I wouldn’t say I eat, sleep, and breathe the content, but it’s been there during most of my downtime. I’m scrolling during my morning coffee while waiting in lines, or the bathroom. To be honest more than I probably should but it’s become part of my everyday routine.
I remember it was around 9 PM on Saturday, and just as I was about to queue up my usual For You Page, a screen message popped up saying, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.” It was followed by a message explaining that a new law took effect in the United States, making the app unavailable to American users.
Okay, so we parted ways with TikTok for about 16 hours, but it felt longer! How else were we all supposed to brain rot before bed? A few users temporarily filled their void with other apps, but nothing felt right.
TikTok Refugees
There were a few prospective apps everyone collectively agreed to try out to rebuild the TikTok community, such as BlueSky, RedNote, and Neptune, among others.
Out of all the apps a majority headed over to RedNote, essentially considered Chinese TikTok by some, although there are similarities it is intended as more of a lifestyle app parallel to Instagram. Within hours American users saturated RedNote with their content making it the number one downloaded app right before the ban.
Pre-existing RedNote users were all welcoming and offered to teach American users Mandarin. They began referring to new users as “TikTok Refugees,” which even became a way for new users to self-identify themselves on the app. Overall, during the short period when TikTok users temporarily left the app, to prove a point more than anything, the interactions between both social media worlds colliding were filled with fun facts, friendly banter, and positive energy all around.
In retrospect, the magnitude of both worlds colliding was so high, that there was even some speculation about RedNote possibly separating American users to a different IP but nothing has yet been confirmed.
Now That The Americans Are Gone Trend Spirals
Toast with Beans! England TikTokkers finally felt comfortable again sharing one of their favorite meals on the app after American Users got banned. It’s literally just beans on top of toast, apparently a popular breakfast delicacy out in England.
I don’t think they meant any harm, it was more so one of those moments where you embrace change with humor. Before the ban, a lot of Americans would tease England users in the comments for eating such a unique meal for breakfast, so at that moment they just felt safe to upload that sort of content once more.
What made this trend funny is the fact that American Users came back sooner than anticipated but also with TikTok different after the ban it took some time for this trend to come to light. Some content creators took it upon themselves to snitch on users from other regions acting out, during the ban by mocking all 170 million users in the United States.
First impressions
“Did Meta purchase TikTok?” I came across several videos of people trying to debunk whether or not Mark Zuckerberg purchased TikTok. However, according to the Bytedance website, they are still associated with TikTok as well as the TikTik Shop.
Regardless of who owns TikTok right now, what happened to the algorithm? The best way to describe how my FYP looks right now is, to imagine five FYPS merged into one but none of the content it feeds you is anything you showed interest in before it completely shut down. So, all I see is new faces and a dash of cat content on my FYP.
My FYP now even has incorporated other sides of the app into my feed such as TikTok University, which full disclosure is intriguing, but I hop on the app to decompress after spending hours studying for courses, I actually enrolled in.
I miss being on the chaotic side of TikTok, filled with all the drama or any updates on recent events, that all infiltrated my FYP. More importantly, I long for the sense of feeling informed about all the things that matter to me. Although some topics may be considered controversial by the algorithm if they pertain to me, I should be able to access the content.
Even though it has now been about a week since everything happened my FYP is still finding itself or more like I’m looking for it! I have been interacting with the algorithm more and trying to find my community again. Just the other day I learned that you can change your algorithm by going to your settings, and then going to adjusting content preferences, there you while find manage topics, that’s where you can request to see more or less specific content on your FYP. Good news! It does work but even then, it is not the same as it was before the ban.
Hello, Again For, Now?
Okay so TikTok is back but for now. Is it staying long-term? As of right now, nothing is set in stone and TikTok has not confirmed any details about making a deal with any American company to avoid the ban in the future. Whether or not the President can prevent the ban from taking place later down the line is also uncertain for now.
Let’s just say if you have TikTok on your phone right now, you are lucky because the App Store for both Apple and Android users has not yet made the app available for download since the TikTok ban was paused. Without the app being made available to users, down the line we will mostly likely experience glitches due to necessary updates.
TikTok different after ban and what happened to your FYP? Tell us all about your experience in the comments.
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