What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious last scroll on TikTok?
They've actually done it, folks...
At some point last year, utterly by accident, I freed myself from the shackles of TikTok. I probably went on a trip where I was too busy to open the app and, apart from using it for work, stopped scrolling on it on a regular basis. Does saying that give pick-me energy? Absolutely. But I’m STEPPING INTO MY TRUTH. As someone who, two years ago, was spending between one to five hours on the app —FIVE HOURS — you guys need to let me have this.
But when the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban, I changed my little tune. Suddenly, my eyes needed to make contact with every piece of content on this godforsaken app. I needed to bear witness to the modern-day burning of the Library of Alexandria (if the library was filled with thinspo and Dior lip oil). In truth, though, TikTok was equal parts brain rot as well as enlightenment. I can’t tell you how many middle-aged women in the midwest (ones I know personally) who have had their worldview expanded tenfold by the app. It is, er, was a digital landscape where every piece of information this world had to offer was thrown at you, for better or worse. Tradwives, salmon rice bowls, Palestine, Shein, brat, small businesses, old men who sing, sourdough, that little tray every toaster has for crumbs. Pure whiplash, but I genuinely don’t think as many people could’ve, or would’ve, learned about the plight of the Palestinian people if it weren’t for TikTok. In fact, during the first few months of the genocide, the app was one of the only things tethering me to this earth. Seeing how many young people cared, people with no tie or connection to Palestine, kind of healed something in me that felt very broken at the time. So many people were willing to learn, asking to learn, teaching one another. There was, of course, fuckery, like when the app sent sponsored posts advertising birthright trips down my algorithm river. But the rest of it, the good stuff, gave me hope. More importantly, it gave my dad hope. I mean, this man hasn’t hoped for anything since circa 2001. He grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp with 11 siblings and attended UN-run schools until he somehow finagled a visa to the U.S. at 18. All the hope he had was probably beat out of him by the time my little brother was born. But telling him how people were speaking about Palestine on TikTok, relaying the way they were organizing and recommending books to one another, altered something deep within him. I’ve never seen him so filled with conviction before — conviction that Palestine will be free, if not in his lifetime, then at least during his children’s.
Now that the app has shuttered, it doesn’t quite feel as hyperbolic to say we’ve lost something. Yes, everyone’s attention span is absolutely fried now and reading comprehension is allegedly plummeting, but at least there were windows to other worlds splattered among all that mess. But hey, thank God the government took action right?! Like this is obviously wayyyy more important than the rising cost of living, or our lack of access to healthcare, or the genocide we’re funding, or the stripping of our bodily autonomy, or gun control. Seriously, everyone take a breath! Breathe a sigh of RELIEF. We are SAFE from TikTok Shop and 30-second sound bites from that one influencer’s podcast! Life will be nothing but BEAUTIFUL here in the U.S. of A. from here on out!
Anyway, even though we’re probably getting TikTok back on Monday when Tr*mp gets inaugurated, I wanted to commemorate my final voyage through her murky waters. RIP.
My final scroll:
A gorgeous woman with incredible skin and a septum piercing is telling me peaceful protests get us nowhere. I’m Arab so if I speak on this, either for or against, I won’t be allowed to fly anymore :(
A man in a hoodie is threatening to read a book (omg!???!!) after TikTok gets yanked out of our desperate, clammy hands.
Someone is teaching me how to say “I don’t give a shit” in Mandarin. I can’t grasp it on my tongue, but it sounds amazing coming from their mouth. I’ll try harder when I inevitably make a RedNote account.
Xi Jinping, good news, look out your front window! You should have several TikTokkers’ social security numbers and birth certificates at your door! I’ve seen at least 8 say they’re sending their most personal information your way!
Oh my god, this brunette is telling me I have to do shadow work and that my angel numbers are 111 and 333. This feels way too serious for me to be consuming in these final moments.
A video of Biden trying to convince everyone he wasn’t on board with carpet bombing Gaza. Okay, diva, when we don’t like something we usually don’t throw money at it! CHOPPED.
Some girl in a pink cardigan is telling me to boycott Pinterest as part of a data strike because it’s “owned by Google and Amazon.” Neither company owns Pinterest, but I appreciate the zeal!!!
Sometime around 10:30 p.m., I started getting an error message alerting me that TikTok was no longer available… My final doomscroll was cut short. She took her last breaths, literally, in my hands. I mean, I watched her light go out. I saw her life force drain… May she rest in peace. Perhaps I’ll see her again someday, maybe even as soon as Monday when Tr*mp takes office. Until then, I’m genuinely unsure how some Americans are going to make it through. What I do know is that they certainly will not be turning to any Meta-owned platform either out of spite or simply because being affiliated with Meta in a serious way has become cringe, at least with this wackadoodle steering the ship. Whatever Zuck has injected into the algorithm of reels is just too terrifying to even wade into — the other day I saw a woman and her boyfriend doing squats to curb their “lust” before marriage????? Anyway, don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened :))))))
A note for my dear subscribers: I’m going to be experimenting with the format of this newsletter in the coming weeks! Don’t be alarmed, but it just might mean you’ll hear from me more often. Hope that’s okay!!!! <3
I'm in Canada - and for anyone curious, we are still seeing US accounts like nothing's changed. A few people are leaving 'in memoriam' comments on Americans' good-bye posts (white dove emojis, "rip we will remember you", etc) to cope with dark humour.