On January 18, 2025, the United States experienced a “TikTok shutdown.” Personally, this had me reflecting on my own time spent on TikTok. I got TikTok when I was about sixteen, following in the footsteps of all of my friends. The platform, and social media overall, began to take up a different space in our daily lives. We used to have to wait until we got home, or until there was a moment of stasis, to hop on the app. In the daily life of a highschooler, it’s incredibly hard to do what the algorithm wants, which is for you to spend as much time on the app as possible. Tiktok’s algorithm, married with the lockdown orders of March 2020, hooked an entire population of people, not just teens like myself.
The early days of the pandemic felt like no man’s land. Collectively, we had no clue what was next for the world or the direction things would go. On a positive note, TikTok provided a place for people to connect at a time when they couldn’t meet face-to-face. However, when social distancing measures let up and we developed a new “normal” people continued to rely on TikTok for a social space. Social media held a place in everyones life that was invasive and also irrevocable. In addition to this, there was an entirely new group of people who relied on TikTok’s huge audience to market their products or themselves. People became brands over the pandemic with everyone on their phones, ready to see their next move because there was nothing else to do. All of this is not to say these things didn’t exist before TikTok and before COVID. However, TikTok created an entirely new online atmosphere, which allowed for social media owners everywhere to take advantage of the way we relied on the internet even more than before. Post-pandemic, this idea that the internet is a separate entity from reality quickly diminished. I think that looking back like this is important when thinking about where we are now. Throughout 2021, I became a bit demystified with the platform and deleted the app because I felt like it wasn’t worth the time I was giving it. On top of that, the advancement of the Instagram algorithm in the form of their Reels tab ostensibly replaced TikTok in my life. In contrast, the general population would only grow to use TikTok more over the next few years.
Fast forward to the first few weeks of 2025 and we were facing a TikTok crisis. TikTok was ingrained in people’s lives over six or so years, leaving creators and users alike in a state of confusion and mourning. I was especially interested in the group of creators exposing their content creation secrets as a sort of goodbye to the platform. To get more specific examples on the topic, I watched a Nicole Rafiee video detailing exactly what certain creators said as they thought their beloved app would be unavailble in their country. Collectively, I think we all know on some level that the content we watch is manufactured. At the same time, these platforms and creators run their businesses on influencer marketing. With the information that most creators are fabricating large portions of their content, these influencers become become less effective at selling products. Or in the interest of the platforms, less effective at generating viewership and followers to increase traffic on their apps.
Overall, you would think that users saw these exposed lies and disengaged with creators. Instead, these creators boosted their platforms by exposing both prior and current manipulation of their audiences. I’m fully aware, as I’m sure you are, that most mukbang content creators are not eating all that food. But, creator Nikki DeMartino admitted to lying about living on the opposite side of the country and renting entire houses to fabricate a lifestyles she simply wasn’t living. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram exist in a sort of liminal space where there aren’t clear social boundaries. So, it puts into question whether or not you can blame these creators for participating in an online culture of portraying yourself better than you are. Another excellent point from Nicole Rafiee was that these creators set the precedent they argued they had no choice but to follow. Early YouTube creators set the blueprint with “get ready with me,” etc. content generated for teenage girls in the 2010s. If they started off dishonest and lying about what life they lived, its easy to see how the TikTok creators that followed in their footsteps would use the same deceptive tactics to push out a highly crafted image.
To wrap this up, it would be nice to say that instances like this will help to establish more clear boundaries with the internet and how much we believe what we see online. But, there is a fundamental issue with that philosophy at the same time. These platforms are made to grab your attention for as long as possible. Companies engineer technology that responds to your habits, likes and dislikes. Boundaries are the antithesis of this model. When you can’t even distinguish between what’s realistic and what’s not because of online content, new norms are set for real life behavior. There is so much to the TikTok ban that goes beyond social media and creators. However, the very people making policies were able to get there by mobilizing people on these platforms. By using these creators, they use preexisting parasocial trust to gain voters. But, instances like Nikki DeMartino’s that seem futile, paint a vivid picture of the ways we believe everything we see online. So, this 2025 I encourage you to be discerning with the content you consume. Notice what creators may be doing behind the scenes and try to be as intentional as you can in the face of algorithm nightmares!