Two Roads Diverge in a Social Media Wood

On the Looming TikTok Ban

Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken” is a time-honored classic. Many scholars tout it as his best work, while others have taken to memorizing it for certain nefarious Greek organization purposes. Either way, the poem itself is compelling in its honest simplicity. The narrator, when faced with a fork in the road or the “wood” (read: life) chooses the less popular road with the understanding that this is a decision they cannot walk back. That many would not have chosen this path and that distinguishing themselves from the “herd” has had a notably large and possibly positive impact on their life. It’s beautiful if not a little self-important. I say this all to say, we as TikTok users, 6 in 10 of us in the U.S. according to the Pew Research Center, will also be faced with a similar path come January when the TikTok ban inevitably goes into effect.

When I wrote about the TikTok ban in April, I’ll admit that deep down I didn’t think it would actually happen. I assumed that they would come to an expensive resolution and business would continue as usual.

They Actually Banned TikTok

It seemed unthinkable that the U.S. government would just doom countless small businesses and creators overnight, crippling a chunk of the economy in the process. To be fair, I’ve been known to be very optimistically delulu in the spring so maybe this can be attributed to that. But ultimately the idea that the U.S. would do something with no financial incentive was hard for me to believe but here we are. There are no appeals left and it is unlikely that the case would go on to the supreme court. If by some miracle it did, it would take months to resolve and would likely result in a loss for TikTok, given the current attitudes of the court. So that’s settled. Without getting into my personal opinion on the matter, I want to look at what I believe the two roads that lay before us are and why we should take the one less traveled.

The first option presented before us is the one the American billionaires and their interests want for us. That once TikTok is gone, we will struggle with our dopamine addictions and be incapable of escaping the need to scroll. In response, the majority of us on the site will flock to threads or reels or “X” in record numbers and begin posting there with the same frequency we do on TikTok. For the creators on TikTok that have built platforms, they will either move to those apps with middling success or lose the platforms they’ve built outright and return fully to the struggling workforce. If they’re lucky they’ll go to an Amazon warehouse and hopefully never unionize. The small business on TikTok will also fail and those people will also go to the warehouses. Then the American companies can use our data to better market to us and track us as opposed to a “non-American” company. They will also then block content deemed “un-American” at the behest of our representatives. Lastly, we will all silently struggle while we forget what we’ve learned from each other on TikTok. We’ll learn to be complacent if not satisfied with our worsening conditions. This would ensure the continued wealth hoarding of the 1% except now they can be “cool” on social media again. I see now that I’m not the only one guilty of being delulu. It goes without saying that this simply won’t do.

The second option, the better one in my estimate, would be to completely take back our attention and abstain from as many other apps as possible. To not reward bad actors with the data and eyes and money they are desperately trying to extract from us at all times. To ignore whatever nonsense cheap imitation meta puts out and go outside. Really, we should all go outside. Even if by force, we have to be outside. We must be in the community, staring each other in the eyes while we try to figure out what to do with our hands. Resisting the urge to scroll even if it hurts because every hour spent scrolling is a stamp of approval for the removal of your rights. For the creators among us, it’s unfair, demoralizing, and frustrating that you could have your livelihood snatched away like this and I’m truly sorry. But isn’t that a reason to not reward a platform from Elon or the Zuck with your talents anyway? I frankly don’t believe they deserve it and they should be embarrassed for expecting it. As dire as things look right now, I’m keen on taking the route that gives me as much agency as possible.

I don’t know what the immediate future holds but I know enough that a ban on TikTok would have an immediate effect on the populace overnight. TikTok would linger on for a little while until the app stores do updates and it’s no longer compatible with our devices. However, the cultural outrage and despair will be felt immediately. Compounded with the changes we’re sure to see with the new administration, I think it’s fair to say that things are going to get really ugly. But I don’t think we should take it lying down and all I have to offer right now is malicious compliance. I’ll let you know when I have more.

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