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In December, in a piece about Luigi Mangione and the “blackpilling” of America – a descent into disillusionment –Writer Vox Rebecca Jennings described a general malaise settling over the masses: “All groups of Americans seem increasingly in a nihilistic mood… They are disenchanted with the economy and feel pessimistic about climate change, the market of dating and their loneliness. They lose faith in almost every major institution in the United States, from the public school system to the police departments, the military, unions, organized religion and, of course, the media”.
That feeling could also describe much of the attitude towards social media platforms in 2025. X, once considered the square of the city of the internet, is lousy with trolls, hate speech, and propaganda. Meta, apparently following in the footsteps of X and Elon Musk, is moving back fact checking and protection of hate speech on Facebook and Instagram at a breakneck pace. Social platforms are ready to become even more poisonous for their users as a handful of scandalous rich and powerful men cope with their own insecurities around masculinity and freedom of speech.
TikTok, in comparison, was not just another social platform. It was personalized, even helpful. I have been an avid TikToker for years; it’s a platform that taught me recipes, curly hair care, how to find financial resources, art tutorials, workout routines, plant care, and much more. It has had a more positive material influence on my life than any other platform, a sentiment shared by many American users. Is that personal impact more important than hearing dry explanations from the government about foreign influence? Just ask the TikTokers now learn mandarin while migrating to RedNote.
Other TikTok users are spending what appear to be the last few days of the app saying goodbye. “To my Chinese spy watching me through my phone,” read one“I’ll miss you.” The final times on the app are full of creators asking their audience to follow them elsewhere, while also using every last second to dunk on his country and their efforts to ban an app while much larger problems persist. “National security risk?” user Bryan Andrews says in a video with 27 million views. “Yeah fucking right.”
We are long past the days where TikTok was thought of as just that app where people posted lip syncs and dances. Today it is a powerhouse, a finely tuned machine that produces memes, jokes, fashion trends, news, music, slang, and much faster than any modern social platform.
TikTok’s success exists on a macro and micro level, dictating cultural trends and offering individuals the ability to curate a specific type of lifestyle through a feed that constantly evolves based on your interests. It is given artists a better platform to have their work seen by people all over the world. Is it help victims in war-torn countries he receives his message overseas. It has created a new generation of small business owners, an untold number of people who have been able to financially bootstrap themselves in a better life by building an audience.
The threat that the US government says that TikTok poses little interest to the average American. Indeed, the younger generations have always they exist in a highly online world where their privacy has been exposedsometimes since birth. As a TikTok user crutches_and_spice put: “I don’t give a damn that China has my data! Are you kidding me? Everyone has my data.”
