From a Hannah Montana cliffhanger to joking about the still-habitual opening and closing of the app, TikTok users are finding some humor in the platform’s U.S. shutdown.
The social media platform effectively went dark in the U.S. on Saturday, Jan. 18, just hours before the law that banned the app from being distributed in the United States was set to go into effect.
Many users had their video-scrolling suddenly interrupted, others couldn’t finish saving all of their content and most trying to access the app in the hours since have been greeted with a message, saying: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
Anxiously anticipating what will happen to the social media platform in the long term, social media users have rushed to other platforms to voice their grievances and commemorate TikTok’s slightly early departure with humor.
“TikTok doing an Irish goodbye 2 hours early…….DIVA,” wrote user @tannertan36.
“Everyone rushing to Twitter [X] because TikTok is gone,” wrote user @ayeejuju, alongside a video of hundreds of people running in the same direction.
Posting under the handle @repusnaketion, a third user shared an image of Twilight’s Bella Swan looking downcast as they joked about their feelings “2 minutes without TikTok.”
Donald Trump previously announced that he planned to ban TikTok from operating in the U.S. during his first term in April 2020. President Joe Biden eventually signed ban-or-sell legislation last April.
The shutdown itself happened after the Supreme Court ruled on Jan. 17 that a law forcing the platform to cease U.S. operations if it didn’t divest from Chinese ownership was constitutional.
X users have vented the frustration of currently being unable to access the app even, when using a VPN, as they struggle to adjust to life without TikTok.
“Me opening TikTok & seeing ‘sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now’ 😭,” wrote user @beyoncegarden, while sharing a clip of a shocked Miley Cyrus and a “to be continued” message at the end of a Hannah Montana episode.
“Scrolling Twitter [X] because TikTok is gone but every tweet is about TikTok,” user @comfypill captioned a GIF of an Animal Crossing bunny holding a candle in the dark.
“Just got the ‘TikTok is banned’ pop up, closed the app, then went back to it 3 seconds later out of habit,” added user @laurenontour. “Yeah I’m cooked.”
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The TikTok ban has also earned its fair share of comparisons, including being likened to Nickelodeon’s Worldwide Day of Play — an annual event on the channel that encourages kids to step outside and turn off their televisions. “This is what the TikTok ban feels like,” wrote @whyrev.
Users also compared the disappearance of TikTok to a storefront being replaced, seasonally, by a Spirit Halloween banner.
TikTok users outside of the U.S. have also been amused by the situation. X user Yashar Ali detailed that people outside the U.S. are now “roasting Americans” on the app due to the ban, as he shared a clip of other countries — Canada, Australia, the U.K. and Mexico — gossiping to each other on a world map with super-imposed faces.
“Just heard the still silence of my home for the first time in five years…chills…,” joked X user @lukasbattle.
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Others have even offered — apparently to the government — other things to take in place of TikTok.
“They really took away TikTok 😭😭Nah take Facebook instead, Take Instagram. S— take my EX idc,” wrote user @Drebae_.
Despite the uproar, there are also internet users who aren’t too concerned about TikTok’s departure. X user @JasonStiff shared a GIF of the “This Is Fine” dog as he admitted to not being impacted by the shutdown.
“Me being one of about 15 people in the country without a TikTok watching everyone else in the country melting down with ITS GONE without their TikTok,” he wrote.
Trump, 78, recently discussed the idea of a 90-day extension in an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at,” he said, per the outet. “The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation.”
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