EDIT 1/19: Just kidding, I guess.
One of the last Tiktoks Kesha posted was "Tiktok may be temporary but TiK ToK is forever." I would link to it, but now, at 10:59 on January 18th, 2025, I get this screen when I open then app:
I thought we'd have more time. At least until 11:59. Another hour of scrolling would've been nice, I'll admit. Up until today, I genuinely didn't think it could, or would happen. That something that's been so present and consistent could just be... gone. Just like that. What would Carrie Bradshaw say about this? I don't know, I stopped watching after she did Aiden dirty.
I Thought We'd Have More Time!
Now it's 11:15 (a nice, even timestamp, how convenient), and Tiktok is still gone. I reluctantly (yes, reluctantly) started posting videos in December 2019. I think my first video was either showcasing a bunch of my shoes, or a bunch of my jackets. Maybe both. It was cute, I was a baby! So much has changed since then, I can't even believe it.
I haven't thought about how much Tiktok has meant to me, honestly, because change freaks me out and thinking about that would mean accepting that it really could go away. Here we are.
When I started making videos, outfit of the days, I didn't know what it would turn into. I could have never grasped the editing skills it would churn out of me, the creativity; melwears1000? One thousand outfit videos, all because I started making outfit videos. That's thanks to Tiktok; I didn't post anything on reels until much later.
I've gone viral, I've been able to work with brands, I've met incredible and talented people through videos and creating in this unique way. I am so grateful for what it's brought so many of us. I mean, it was people's career. Charli D'Amilio danced on Tiktok, and now she's on broadway. You can't underscore the impacts, or limit them to making people famous either.
A Blog Post, Out of Desperation
Because I am incredibly cranky and feeling hopeless this week anyway, I am taking the Tiktok ban very personally (starting January 18, evening-time specifically. I have decidedly procrastinated my reaction to this). So after a solid hour of doom-scrolling in my fleece polar bear pajamas (my mom lent them to me for the weekend, they are very comfortable), I got to work.
For the past few hours I've been sitting on the couch, cat curled up next to me, and written quite feverishly. It's awakened a strange sort of panic in me, like we're running out of time and the rug could be ripped out from under us at any moment.
I polished up my writing website and this one too. I felt they were ugly and semi-useless for awhile now, and if everything can be taken away from us anyway, I may as well stop putting off using my websites. They can't take that from us, right?
So here I am, late new-years-resolution-style panicking to write more, to use my blog more, to put more of myself out there and stop being afraid that everything isn't perfect. If everything can be taken away, than all we can do is try to reach people before it is, give it our all.
We've Been Here Before
When I was in middle/high school, I was a heavy viewer of Vine. Road work ahead? I sure hope it does. I was genuinely so sad when Vine shut down. I was confused - how could this happen? How could people close down something that had such a strong cultural impact, brought so many people together, brought so many people joy? Well, it turns out they sure can, and sure did. That's business, baby.
Ironically, Twitter, which owned Vine, is now also no more, not really. God. What is X really. I hate it so much. On principle and just generally. I heavily debated on deleting my accounts today, ones that I've had and used for 10+ years. All my tiny, character-limited musings throughout my teenage years. Life is strange in that way, we've become documenters by nature. Maybe we always have been, it just looks different now. It looks like social media. And it changes and will continue to change whenever without warning. Maybe that's all life is, change and discomfort.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Reels, probably. Ain't that funny. We used to joke all the time that reels were the Internet Explorer of videos, where trends from Tiktok would take forever to migrate over. And now, that's what we've got. Or RedNote, which I've seen a lot of people, content creators specifically, starting to use. I don't know where I'll go, but I guess there was life before Tiktok right, so there will be life after Tiktok. Dramatic as that sounds, it is a jarring thing to lose. To know that it could be gone, to know how much it was taken for granted.
I hadn't been consistently posting on Tiktok since the first time the ban was seriously threatened. Maybe I abandoned ship early, but the idea of pouring so much into an app that could go away made me uneasy. So I stopped.
Isn't it strange that the same can be said for anything? For Instagram, for Twitter (gone, now X), for anything substantial used for connection in this way. I hope we stay connected somehow.
love you lots,
meli
Commentaires