Last fall, I had the good fortune of watching Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis on a big screen in an empty theatre. This movie is not particularly loved. Rotten Tomatoes has it scoring 45% on the tomatometer, whereas the film’s Letterboxd average is sitting at 2.3 stars. Contrary to the vox populi, I loved this movie, which is kind of on-brand. I fear I am poised to piss a lot of people off when I release my top ten favorite films of 2024, but more on that later. Coppola is deservingly best known for his Godfather films (excluding part 3). But one of my favorite films of all time is his “Apocalypse Now,” the 1979 war drama featuring Marlon Brando as one of cinema’s most compelling, steady, and intense antagonists, Colonel Kurtz.
Perhaps more fascinating than the film and its performances are the making of the picture: principal photography stretched from 5 months to almost a year, a hurricane destroyed the sets, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack, there was a budgeting crisis, footage stretched over a supposed 1 million feet in length (800 Empire State Buildings!), and a hookworm infection plagued another actor. The film is always a joy to revisit. And its slow-motion opening has been replaying in my head all week: Blue skies, helicopters, yellow smoke, palm trees, and a napalm strike — all played over The Doors “The End.” Those pensive strums, shaking cymbals, and introductory lyrics have been following me as we enter what is likely TikTok’s demise in the States — January 19, 2025.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end…— The Doors
The vibes of TikTok’s shuttering range from indifferent, to angry, to funny, and downright mournful. In jest, some people on the platform have been bidding farewell to their assigned Chinese spies. Others have been passionately cursing the federal government. I’ve been trying to measure the temperature. When I asked an acquaintance earlier this week how they felt about the popular social media app going dark, they painfully replied, “Don’t remind me” while scrolling through their feed.
The app’s popularity is captured by its widespread use. There are an estimated 150–170 million TikTok users in the U.S. alone. That’s anywhere between 44–50% of the nation’s population. Among the American users, 7 million plus businesses are operating on the platform. Thousands of people rely on the platform for primary and secondary sources of income. Most, however, use TikTok as a place for gathering news, entertainment, and finding online communities (e.g., fitness, crafts, thrifting, pets, etc.).
As I walked around Target last week with my sister, I was surprised to see that one such community — BookTok — had its own section in the literature space! The app has done a phenomenal job of connecting like-minded people and dishing content that satisfies sometimes unknown appetites — scratching niche itches.
In this regard, TikTok’s algorithm is both frightening and a thing of beauty. With serving sizes mostly reserved to short-form videos, it was so easy to stay glued to the screen — each scroll a surprise, a tuning into a quasi, looped TV channel. I’ll miss my For You Page, the late night (more like early morning) viewing, the lunchtime watch breaks, and my stretching sessions, which were often conducted while being mesmerized by the TikTok feed.
It’s weird to know that there will be, in all likelihood, a time after TikTok. The app expires in early 2025, only living to eight years of age. My conviction of a steady ban rests upon the legislation, the Supreme Court’s stamp of disapproval, and corporate conservatism.
The ban’s progression is linear, and not exclusively American: In March of 2024, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the use of TikTok in the U.S. if the app’s China-based company/owner/parent (ByteDance Ltd.) refused to sell it. The House tally was 352–65. It was then punted to the Senate, which then passed it with a 79–18 margin. President Biden signed it into law on April 24, 2024. The law got a unanimous endorsement from the Supreme Court on January 17, 2025 — two days before the app’s dispatch, in a predictable per curiam decision, which, by definition of this opinion class, does not name a single author or Justice. The Court did not really view this as a First Amendment (i.e., a freedom of speech) issue.
“It is not clear that the Act itself directly regulates protected expressive activity, or conduct with an expressive component.” — TikTok Inc. v. Garland
Lawmakers in Washington cited national security concerns as the sweeping rationale for the legislation. The FBI and Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok’s parent company could disclose American user data to China’s authoritarian government. With this harvested bulk of data, so posit U.S. officials, China could spy on Americans. Per CNN: One fear is that “China could access users’ information as potential blackmail material. Another was that the company could manipulate content in a way that benefits the Chinese government’s talking points.” And as seen by the aforementioned vote counts in both chambers of Congress, there was broad bipartisan agreement. Apparently, we are supposed to fear a foreign nation’s data collection more than deregulated gun laws and markets.
On the eve of the app’s dissolution, however, there seems to be some backpedaling from members of Congress. They want to delay the ban. As NBC hilariously reports, “neither party wants to take credit for that bipartisan legislative win.” The outgoing Biden administration now says that enforcement of the law is a responsibility left to the incoming Trump administration — which will be unchecked, by lots of humor at least, with TikTok’s absence.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote, “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!” There’s discussion that he might issue an executive order to delay or forgo enforcement of the ban, but such an order may be insufficient and challenged in the courts. Apple and Google might just skirt the suspense and beat everyone to the punch by pulling TikTok from their app stores since, according to multiple sources, the law requires them to completely sever ties with the platform or face fines of $5,000 for each user that can still acquire the popular app. And unless the U.S. government assures Apple and Google that they will not be subject to these hefty financial penalties, TikTok will absolutely “go dark” in the U.S. on January 19, 2025.
In the same way some pet owners immediately try to move on from the death of their beloved fur baby, Americans have looked to swiftly replace TikTok with a comparable alternative — because Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts just don’t satisfy that unique itch. En masse, many Americans — the “TikTok refugees” — have flocked to RedNote (Xiaohongshu), which is now topping the app store charts! For those not yet off the doomed vessel looking for a floating plank, what’s next? Shall we touch grass? Read a novel? Go insane in the void it left? All the above?
Nobody can say with complete certainty that they know what follows, cementing my long-held belief that almost nobody knows what the hell they’re doing. But it seems that TikTok will wither on the vine, soaring away from American skies the same way a white dwarf star dies — dimming, cooling, and fading away. Maybe not. I leave the app with recent searches that include mushy peas recipes, Gustavo Dudamel clips, and deep breathing exercises for sleep.
Hugo is a writer of politics, culture, and fiction. Follow him on Twitter (@hugosaysgo) for recommended reading and memes, and on Instagram (@hugosnaps) for photography. Happy reading.
