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In its infancy, TikTok was often described as an app for teenagers’ dance videos. In 2025, it’s a juggernaut with 170 million users in the United States and, according to the Justice Department, a national security threat that must be eliminated.
The platform’s path from a whimsical dance app to the target of a federal ban has been dotted with recipes, niche drama, micro trends, new entries into the popular lexicon and overnight megastars — as well as legal troubles, Senate hearings and, finally, a widely watched Supreme Court case.
Here’s a timeline of the app’s meteoric rise, and a reminder of the videos that dominated your algorithm, whether you wanted them to or not.
2012
Zhang Yiming, a Chinese entrepreneur, founds ByteDance. He reportedly sketched the rough concept for what would become TikTok on the back of a napkin.
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2014
July
Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang launch Musical.ly. The co-founders pivoted the platform from an education app to a lip-sync app, allowing users to make 15-second videos singing along to popular songs.
