A TikTok opinion
The wildly popular app was shut down to American customers on Sunday morning due to the Supreme Court dropping the hammer.
“You should get on TikTok.”
More than a few friends of mine said those words during a conversation in recent years, as the social media platform grew in subscribers and popularity. It was like a big party was happening and I wasn’t there yet, even if an invitation wasn’t exactly hiding. A friend of mine, Maribel, was one of the avid users who tried to get me more active on the site. I bet she’s bummed this morning with the app currently unavailable to US customers.
United States lawmakers and decision-makers, with the Supreme Court being the final hammer drop this week, ruled it unfit for this country. The app is currently unavailable. TikTok released a tweet informing users that the service was in the process of restoration due to President Trump (who takes office officially tomorrow) promised the service providers that no harm would come to them for making TikTok available. Imagine scaring that easily.
Basically, by the time I post this, TikTok could be back on in the states.
The reasoning is marred in this idea that the owner of TikTok works with certain Chinese companies, a union that the U.S. wants to dissolve. Trump has even said this weekend that he wishes for our country to own half of the interest in the company. Good luck to having the owner, ByteDance, agree to those terms. Then again, since the company’s success in the U.S. fuels its bottom line, maybe that does eventually happen.
What’s my take? I am not exactly Switzerland here, but I don’t have a major rooting interest in either outcome. If TikTok stuck around, that’s great for creatives and ordinary folks using it to climb out of the ugliness in this world, even if only for a few seconds. Good for them. However, if it remained dark here, I wouldn’t protest in the streets or much further beyond this article. I don’t use many apps regularly these days, with most of the action going to Facebook and BlueSky.
A rabid Instagram/Vine hybrid, the app allowed you to create unique videos incorporating visual and audio abilities that spruced up the normal “night on the town” recap. Chefs, entertainers, and musicians found a home there. People with a voice like Maribel used it to help launch her own company recently, Be You Out Loud. I got a kick out of watching her videos, where she would urge listeners to stop putting on a mask and just be you to the world.
Whatever use it found, TikTok seemed to generate more good and laughs than harm and frowns. Banning it is the country’s latest example of scaring easily, and wanting to rid the world of free speech. Facebook’s recent decision to take away fact-checkers didn’t deter me from posting there. After all, the minute you climbed on a social media app and gave your information, the head honchos in large dark offices somewhere have been watching.
My take: Let them watch. As John Turturro told an emotionally battered Riz Ahmed in the underappreciated HBO series, The Night Of: Fuck them, live your life. Taking it away is another way of saying “we’re scared and want to intervene with people’s lives.”
Whether you’re a Trump person, republican, democrat, or whatever, being able to post thoughts or find enjoyment in an app that isn’t harming anyone with half a brain should be your right.
Personally, I’m overwhelmed by the abilities. Call me old fashioned or something cooler, but I don’t need all of those tactics to get my message across. I’m a writer, clear and simple. Read or not, I’m already thinking about the next one. My time with Vine, an app that spliced together six-second videos, ran my brain over with a speed plow. TikTok is no different. I’d need a tutorial from Maribel, a few weeks of training, and shutting out the rest of my creative aspirations to master it. I do have an account, but it’s underused and aggressively amateur in its library.
It’s the same reason I didn’t immediately build a studio when I wanted to podcast again. It’s the same reason I’ll use a laptop that doesn’t close to post an article before buying a brand new one. The same idea behind letting my wife run most of the plays in our marriage offense. Deep down, I am a lazy man with a lot to say.
With news from the lovely Lux St. Louis, who is kicking ass in Kansas City right now on the radio and in soccer arenas all over the state, TikTok apparently did find its way back on during the composition of this latest dose. I don’t want Trump to get a win, but I also don’t need an app to be taken away when I already have the Chinese spying on me.
Speaking of which, follow Lux and Maribel. They’re both great (and are both loyal readers of the Buffet).
To TikTok or not? Well, that depends on how good you are at composing snappy videos that entertain millions or how much you like falling into a YouTube-like rabbit hole watching clips from creators. Maybe you’re like me and don’t use it, but care about who sees your info. I don’t care because they had mine years ago, but I still won’t use it.
Thanks for reading and stay sane out there. Don’t hate on someone else having fun. As Dave Chappelle said about working class people making light of the wildfires destroying homes of millionaires, “that’s why I hate poor people… they can’t see past their own pain.”