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Style|In the United States, Users React to Life (Briefly) Without TikTok
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/19/style/tiktok-reaction.html
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The app went dark nationwide on Saturday night, but the company indicated it was in the process of restoring the service after assurances from President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Jan. 19, 2025Updated 1:51 p.m. ET
“I can’t believe I’m making an Instagram reel to complain about this right now because normally when anything happens in the world, I go to TikTok,” the influencer James Charles said in a video late Saturday night.
Mr. Charles, who has 20 million followers on Instagram, was reacting to the notification that users in the United States had received earlier in the evening informing them that the app would be going dark.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution,” the message said. “Please stay tuned!”
As the shutdown approached, people seemed unclear of what would happen and when.
“Non-Americans, can you still see American accounts on TikTok or are they gone?” Tineke Younger, a chef and content creator, asked her followers on X.
Her videos, multiple users replied, were still visible.
In the days before the ban took effect, even after the Supreme Court’s ruling that the service must be sold to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States, many TikTok users remained hopeful that the app would be spared and that U.S. users would be able to continue using it without interruption. Others tried to cope with humor, like TikTok creators who threw funerals — complete with makeshift caskets and eulogies — for the platform.
But by Saturday night in the United States, it was clear those hopes were, at least briefly, in vain. Alix Earle, a popular TikTok creator, headed straight over to Instagram to livestream with her followers and process the news. Ms. Earle joked she had tried to learn Mandarin to use RedNote, a Chinese video app that has become popular in recent days. She had already been banned from that app, she said.
