How TikTok Changed America

A new law could lead to a ban on TikTok in the U.S. But the social media platform has already influenced everything from the way we shop to the news we consume.

September 16, 2024

Illustrations by Serge Seidlitz

TikTok is in trouble. In April, Congress passed a bill that would force the Chinese owners of the video-app juggernaut, which has 170 million users in the United States alone, to either sell to a non-Chinese owner or face a ban. The reason? Lawmakers worry that the Chinese government could use the app to spy on Americans or spread misinformation, a concern that TikTok says is unfounded.

A long road of legislation and legal challenges lies ahead before TikTok could change ownership or get wiped from app stores in the U.S. But imagining what our nation would look like without TikTok throws into sharp relief just how much the app has worked its way into American culture.

TikTok, which officially landed in the U.S. in 2018, was the most downloaded app in the country, and the world, in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Online videos have been a staple of American pop culture for years, but TikTok put the pieces together in a new way: Unlike Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat, TikTok didn’t build itself around social connections. Its goal is pure, uncut entertainment.

Even Americans who’ve never opened the app have lived in a culture that exists downstream of what happens there. Here are just some of the ways TikTok has become part of our world. —Sapna Maheshwari

170 million

NUMBER of TikTok users in the U.S. as of April.

^{Source: The New York Times}

1. It’s Gen Z’s News Source

By Sapna Maheshwari & Tiffany Hsu

Recently, a TikTok user known as V Spehar posted videos telling viewers what they might have missed about the 2024 election campaigns, rulings from the Supreme Court, and Caitlin Clark’s WNBA starting salary. Spehar posts to more than 3 million followers from the handle @UnderTheDeskNews and films many clips while lying on the floor, a gimmick that began as an effort to differentiate from the authoritative tone of traditional television news anchors.

News-oriented accounts like Spehar’s are shaping the discourse about current events in the U.S., especially among young people. About one-third of 18- to 29-year-olds say they get news regularly on the platform, far outpacing people in other age groups, Pew Research Center has found.

One-third of 18- to 29-year-olds get news regularly on TikTok.

The appeal of TikTok and other social media sites has made mainstream news outlets nervous. It also has raised some concerns around accuracy and context as original reporting is funneled through the eyes of influencers who may not prize accuracy or fairness. Conspiracy theories and tall tales about the 2024 election and other topics are common. Abbie Richards, a misinformation researcher who studies the TikTok ecosystem, says that such posts thrive because of the platform’s potent recommendation algorithms and because you don’t need fancy equipment to create interesting content.

TikTok allows users to earn money from their videos through tools such as its creator rewards program and live stream subscriptions. Conspiracy theories, which draw high engagement—and often fuel political divisions—are among the most profitable categories, says Richards.

“It’s like candy for your brain—it tells a story that simplifies the world in a way that feels good to you,” she says.

2. It’s the New Mall

By Jordyn Holman

via TikTok; Shutterstock.com (phone)

Kiara Springs

Most months, when Kiara Springs posts on her TikTok account about miniskirts or linen tops she finds on Amazon, she earns $10,000 to $12,000 for getting people to buy what she suggests. During her biggest month, Springs, 25, raked in $50,000.

TikTok is now a multibillion-dollar shopping experience—and companies have glommed on. The internet might have killed shopping malls, but now it’s one big mall.

Because the bite-sized videos are addictive, and partly because advertising on the platform is relatively inexpensive, the app has become a core part of many companies’ marketing plans. Brands say that their videos populated with everyday people can more easily go viral than on, say, Instagram, where they often need to pay expensive influencers. And people who notice shopping-related content spend more time on TikTok, according to eMarketer.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Stanley tumblers became a sensation on TikTok. The company’s revenue was $750 million in 2023.

Last year, TikTok debuted a prominent shopping feed on the app that allows people to buy goods directly from a wide array of vendors. Some fashion and beauty brands think about the TikTok content they could make for a product before developing it. Fiona Co Chan, a co-founder of Youthforia, a beauty and skin care brand with roughly 190,000 followers on the app, says if she can’t think of 200 TikTok videos that she could make for a product, she’ll likely scrap it entirely.

31,000

NUMBER of TikTok Shops that are based in the U.S. as of March. That’s nearly 12 percent of the total number of TikTok Shops worldwide.

$11.09 billion

AMOUNT generated in e-commerce merchandise sales by TikTok Shops in 2023.

^{Source: Fit Small Business}

3. It’s a Music Powerhouse

By Ben Sisario

via TikTok; Shutterstock.com (phone)

Taylor Swift

For the music industry, TikTok has become a vital promotional outlet in the race to mint a new hit. Young artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Lil Nas X saw their popularity explode on the platform, and acts like Fleetwood Mac have seen decades-old songs get a boost from memes on the app.

But TikTok is also the latest tech platform to draw the anger of the music industry for low royalty rates. In February, Universal Music Group (UMG), which represents artists such as Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Drake, withdrew the rights to its music on the app, saying that TikTok was trying to “bully” the company to accept low terms.

Within days, millions of TikTok videos using music from Universal artists went mute, and media experts tried to guess which side would blink first. In April, however, Swift broke ranks and put her songs back on TikTok, just ahead of the release of her latest album. And in May, UMG and TikTok announced a new licensing deal that promised better compensation for songwriters and artists.

How Do Influencers Make Money?

Who’s paying social media stars to promote brands and products

4. It Turned the School Bathroom Into a Movie Set

By Natasha Singer

Southern Alamance Middle School, in Graham, North Carolina, recently came up with a novel way to combat student distractions from social media.

The problem: Educators noticed a spike in the number of students asking to leave class—sometimes as frequently as nine times per day—to go to the bathroom, where they made TikTok videos.

The solution: Administrators decided to remove the bathroom mirrors that students used to film TikToks and primp for their close-ups. They also introduced an online system that issues students digital hall passes when they want to be excused from class and that allows administrators to track students’ locations. Administrators say they’ve seen a drastic decrease in bathroom visits since. (Should schools ban phones altogether? See our debate.)

“Toilettoks”—a genre in which students use school bathrooms for dance routines, lip-synching clips, or critiques of unclean lavatories—are one of the milder social media annoyances for schools.

Across the U.S., students have also used bathrooms as arenas to film and post videos of bullying, physical assaults on schoolmates, and acts of vandalism.

In March, the Alamance-Burlington School System announced that it was joining dozens of other U.S. districts that have filed lawsuits accusing social media platforms, including TikTok, of unfairly ensnaring young people.

“We’re seeing the negative impacts of social media on our students every day,” Kristy Davis, the acting superintendent of the Alamance-Burlington School System, says. “Their well-being has to be the top priority.”

5. It’s the Latest Political Tool

By Ken Bensinger & Chrisanne Grisé

Just days after becoming the de facto Democratic nominee for president in July, Vice President Kamala Harris launched a TikTok account with a brief video introduction. Within six hours, the eight-second post had gotten 5.8 million views, and Harris had reeled in more than 1.1 million followers.

Her arrival was the latest sign of the site’s growing importance for politicians seeking to reach young audiences—even as lawmakers simultaneously push to ban the platform.

Nearly 100 social media influencers were credentialed for the Republican National Convention in July to generate buzzy content about former President Donald Trump’s efforts to regain the White House.

Trump joined TikTok himself in June, launching with a video of him with fans at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Newark, New Jersey.

As of early August, Trump’s TikTok account had amassed about 9.6 million followers, while Harris’s following had grown to 4.1 million.

Campaigns have long embraced the latest technological fads, from wireless radio to television sets and, more recently, social media. Before President Biden pulled out of the 2024 race, his campaign had spent $2 million to hire a marketing firm specializing in recruiting influencers.

As he and every candidate has come to realize: In a close election, every lol counts.

6. It’s Where Many People Go Before Calling the Doctor

By Ellen Barry

TikTok is a mother lode of mental health content, filled with compelling first-person accounts of everything from depression to obsessive-compulsive disorder to rare disorders many people aren’t familiar with. Depending on your perspective, that could be a very good thing—or very concerning.

The surge of content about mental health has meant that young people are more likely to self-diagnose before seeing a clinician, psychiatrists report. Diagnoses for A.D.H.D. and anxiety disorders shot up during the pandemic years, especially among young people.

Some researchers have expressed concern about how profit motives may feed into these trends, since platforms often feature advertising from app-based mental health services, and influencers have sponsorship deals with such companies.

Young people are self-diagnosing before going to a doctor.

via TikTok; Shutterstock.com (phone)

“They say we can diagnose you really quick, just take this five-question quiz and we can send you a prescription in a nice little box,” says Holly Avella, a Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers University who has researched mental health and social media.

Researchers also warn that TikTok videos can deliver misinformation.

But some users credit the app with breaking open the national conversation around mental illness.

“You can sit there on your pedestal and pooh-pooh [the app] all you want,” says Kate Speer, who has used her social media feeds to describe her experience of mental illness. TikTok is helpful for “the very people who are struggling the most, those who don’t have access to services in the real world and who might even be so disabled by mental illness that they are locked in their houses.”