TikTok influencers and power users are taking one last swing at the wildly popular social media platform before it likely goes dark on Sunday, revealing their secrets, saying goodbye, and re-creating the trends that got them millions of views.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that requires TikTok to either divest from its Chinese parent company or sell the app. If not, it would face hefty penalties starting January 19 and be banned in the United States. TikTok, for its part, isn’t expected to sell and will reportedly shut off access to U.S. users once the ban takes place.
After months of uncertainty, creators are now coming to terms with the idea that the platform (which boasts more than 170 million U.S. users) is going away.
“Thank you TikTok for everything 3” the user @snarkymarky, who made several viral sounds and videos, told his 4.5 million followers in a video clipping together his popular posts. Charlie Puth posted a video of himself playing his extremely sad “See You Again” on the piano, captioned “Farewell TikTok. Although this isn’t goodbye…”
Many took what could be their final posts as way to ask followers to follow them on other platforms. Victoria Paris, who has 1.9 million TikTok followers, posted “I have loved every day on here but hopefully I can catch you all on instagram.” Tini Younger, who posts recipes, made her viral mac and cheese one more time. She captioned it: “Bringing the Mac n cheese to the TikTok funeral. You can find me on Substack (where I have written out recipes) Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.”
@tinekeyounger Bringing the Mac n cheese to the TikTok funeral🥲💔 You can find me on Substack (where I have written out recipes) Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
♬ original sound – Tini👩🏼🍳🔥
Hundreds of thousands of other users have migrated to the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. The fact that RedNote is subject to Chinese data laws much like TikTok is apparently part of the appeal: Users see their RedNote adoption as a “joke’s on you” moment aimed at the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, many TikTok users struck a playful tune on Friday, using a viral sound clip from Family Guy as backdrop for them to “reveal” secrets to their followers. Oftentimes, that just meant admitting some of their viral stunts and pranks were in fact staged. Meredith Duxbury, who went viral for doing makeup routines where she put 10 pumps of foundation on her face, posted: “i did wipe some of those 10 pumps off…” She captioned it: “or did i?”
Scrolling through TikTok had an air of finality. “And with that, the TikTok era comes to an end,” Sammy Levitt, who goes by TikTok’s Sportscaster, said to his 1.2 million followers.
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