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Mar 158 min read

Calling Your Bluff: The Time To Break Up With TikTok Is NOW



As girls, we tend to roll our eyes at a lot things. But one of our biggest pet peeves is that one friend who always cries wolf. You know what we're talking about:

Friend (crying, screaming, ripping her hair out): "I'm so miserable! He's so awful to me I have to break up with him."
Me: "Okay, so do it. End your misery and just do it."
Friend: "Okay I will!"

24 Hours Later...


Friend: Um.... soooo me and so-and-so are actually going to try to work things out. We're both changing for the better and working on ourselves, and you know, people go through rough patches all the time but we love each other and we support each other, so just take what I was saying before with a grain of salt-"

Imagine this scenario repeated one hundred times more and anyone is going to have a ridiculous headache. We all know that this whole "Ronnie and Sammi Sweetheart" Jersey Shore dynamic is toxic and exhausting for everyone involved (including our friend), and yet they refuse to quit. So what are we trying to get at here with this example? Well...

US Government (crying, screaming, ripping IT's hair out): "I'm so miserable! Bytedance is so awful to me -ruining my mental health and granting China access to my personal privacy and stealing my monetary opportunities- I have to ban TikTok!"
Me: "Okay, so do it. End your misery and just do it."
US Government: "Okay I will!"

24 Hours Later...


US Government: Um.... soooo me and Bytedance are going to try to work things out. We're both changing for the better and working on ourselves, and you know, people go through rough patches all the time but we love each other and we support each other, so just take what I was saying before with a grain of salt-"

Sounds familiar? I've personally been barking up this tree for a looooooong time, and everyone thought I was crazy for it! But GUESS WHAT: Turns out, TikTok is actually bad for you. It's messing with your mental health. It's collecting books-upon-books of personal data on the way you look, sound, and behave, and then it turns around and dictates that information to our "best friend", China. It isolates you from the real world; where -you know- people actually go outside and do things? And it's been sowing discord among your fellow Americans, your friends, your family; promoting a heated "cancel-culture" that is designed to keep people divided.


Back in the day, when people were having an argument, they would just say "agree to disagree" and that would be the end of it. But now, God forbid, if you happen to disagree with someone, it's World War Three. So much of our population (particularly two thirds of Millenials, Gen-Z, and Gen-Alpha) are so obsessed with TikTok. They WORSHIP it. But if all of TikTok's traits were personified in a human being -a significant other, for example- I 100% guarantee that your best friend would tell you to break up with them. And if they didn't tell you that, then they aren't a good friend. However, you at least have me! I like to think of myself as your cyber best friend, which is why I've been fighting this up-hill battle from the beginning.


The Bill Drama


Finally, our girl is seeing the light! Just to update you on what's been going on: A few days ago, the House of Representatives voted by a landslide (352 to 65 votes) to pass a bill to ban TikTok from being used/downloaded in the United States but only IF TikTok's parent company, Bytedance, agrees to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company. So to clarify, the break-up isn't official yet, but there's at least an ultimatum in play. The bill states that Bytedance will have approximately 165 days to decide what it wants to do, but I have a feeling that there's no way they're going to change ownership. This still also has go through the Senate and the Executive branch, and although the USA is the number one country with the highest amount of TikTok users per month (around 150 million Americans according to Pew Research Center), Bytedance isn't convinced that we "mean it". And why should they? They've put up with ultimatums from us before, only for those threats to wilt like a flower in the Sahara. But lately, our government hasn't been messing around anymore. After banning TikTok entirely from the state of Montana and from being used by our military, others states followed suit by banning federal employees from downloading the app. At least 34 out of all 50 states have implemented this restriction since 2020 (see map below).



But it's not just the USA who has had enough. According to the Washington Post, all of these countries have also banned TikTok from being used (either by federal employees and civilians) for security concerns:


  • India

  • Nepal

  • European Union (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands)

  • Canada

  • Britain

  • Australia

  • Taiwan

  • New Zealand

  • Pakistan

  • Afghanistan

  • Somalia

While this is great, it's still not exactly tackling the real problem. Again, if we're ever going to be outright rid of TikTok, you need to tackle the civilians (but not literally).


How The USA Got The "Ick"



If I have to explain it one more time, these are the main reasons why TikTok is not good for modern society, particularly the majority population and ESPECIALLY the younger generations:


  1. Rise In Mental Health Problems

  2. Decreasing Attention Spans, Cognitive Stamina, Healthy Lifestyle

  3. Inappropriate Content Targeting Kids

  4. Data Privacy Concerns

  5. Monetary Exploitation of American Content Creators

I've been a broken record on the preceding points, but I highlighted this bullet because it's actually a really important reason why the United States government wants to get rid of TikTok so bad- not exactly because it gives our population serious mental health problems, but because of the $$$$. According to the Leap Blog, TikTok pays popular influencers around $0.50 - $1 per 1,000 views a creator receives for their video. This actually isn't a lot of money. If you're an average influencer, then that could mean you're making $20 - $40 per million views. For big-whigs such as Addison Rae or the D'Amelio girls, this could end up raking in thousands of dollars in cash (followed by the real money; brand deals, PR sponsorships, reality shows, etc.). But what no one seems to wonder is: Exactly how much of a cut does Bytedance take from the payout? Well, let's do the math here: Minus paying royalties for music, Minus the influencer's pay cut, Minus the shareholders' pay cut, Minus federal income taxes... as of 2023, TikTok made $14.3 billion in annual profit.


Now imagine if Bytedance was an American-owned company, like Google's Alphabet or Apple, who pays more than $8 BILLION EACH in federal taxes to the government per year. In past years, since it is a foreign-based company, Bytedance has only paid about $5 billion in incurred taxes. So could there be a little jealousy that a China-owned social media company is doing so financially well? Absolutely. In Trump's eyes (and what he was trying to communicate minus the embellishment), those should be American dollars since they are predominately generated off of American users. Maybe if Bytedance was owned by Uncle Sam, the United States government would be a little more friendly. Just know that although politicians claim to care about data privacy and making citizens "feel better", they're actually throwing a stink about TikTok because the money isn't going into their pockets...it's going into China's.


Going Cold Turkey


Whenever getting out of a toxic relationship, the best approach is to often go "cold turkey"; sealing yourself off from all contact, removing that person from social media, not still meeting them for coffee or going for a walk out of familiarity...no. Just no. Although it's hard, you need to take a big pair of scissors and cut this person out of your life- not indefinitely, but just long enough until you can get your bearings and stop lamenting about what went wrong. The same approach goes for getting rid of TikTok. People have gotten so attached to this app to an EXTREMELY unhealthy level.


The Stats Say It All:

According to DataProt, the average American spends 95 minutes on TikTok per day, adding up to about 6 hours per week! That's 23.5 more hours than they spend on any other social media platform, which is INSANE! And not to mention, that time-range increases about 7.3% per year, meaning that TikTok has even surpassed Instagram in daily usage rates. Just what about this app makes it so addictive?


Thankfully, You Can Do Better


After discussing the recent ban-drama among my friends (most of whom belong to that Gen-Z focus group), I was pleasantly surprised to find that a lot people aren't too panicked if TikTok happened to disappear from their screens one day. My roommate put it best:

"If TikTok get's banned, I'll just go to Reels."

They teach you in basic college-course economics that if competitive markets are done right, then there's always a substitute for every product. In the history of social media, we've seen this trend multiple times: First there was YouTube. Then there was Vine (RIP), then Musically (RIP), and then the bloodsucking parasite that is TikTok (hopefully soon to be RIP). Therefore, people aren't too worried about TikTok being an empty void in their lives because they know that eventually there's going to be something else to fill it. If you're deeply upset about missing your TikTok, you still have Instagram Reels, which is basically just TikTok built into the existing app. If TikTok's content creators were smart, then they've already migrated their stuff over to Reels and have begun carrying out operations from that platform. Big-whigs such as Addison Rae and Charli D'Amelio have already done a partial switch after last year's ban scare. So in reality, there's nothing to fear. If it comforts you, just think that we are going through a regular market cycle, because at the end of the day, we are.


Conclusion



One thing you should know about me is that I hate to say "I told you so", which I'm not even going to dare do here because I realize that a lot of people are still upset about the possibility of TikTok getting banned. However, I am very proud of the majority of people who understand that it's probably for the best. While no one wants to stop having fun, there comes a moment in time where you have to face the music about how this app is affecting your demeanor, your mannerisms, your precious time and -overall- your well-being. During Covid, no one felt comfortable questioning why China was so aggressive in it's pursuit of collecting other countries' data (specifically their behaviors as users), but now we are not as naive. Things have happened from 2022 to 2024 that made people stop in their tracks and go: "Wait...that's actually messed up. Maybe I shouldn't be on this anymore". Therefore, if you happen to be someone who has made a living on TikTok, I need you to know that things will be okay. This is a big change -and a scary one- from a financial standpoint, but thankfully, it's not the end of the world. You can still maintain your business on other content platforms. Migrate to Instagram Reels before the ultimatum period (165 days from now) and you will be grateful you did.


As for my heart-broken Gen-Z friends: Know that you will also be just fine. Broken hearts can heal with time...or until a new fling comes along. I suggest that you open your minds to Reels or -better yet- get some fresh air. Trust me, it will do you some good.


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