TikTok user aalamode’s handwriting loops across a manila envelope addressed to the president of China. “Sending Xi Jinping a data care package because he’s taken better care of me than the US government ever has,” reads the video’s superimposed text. The camera cuts to a young woman swabbing the inside of her cheek and ripping out a few strands of dark hair before it pans to a shot of her personal effects: passport with social security card tucked inside, a list of medications, a handwritten note reading “My Passwords (For Xi’s eyes only),” baby photos.

Across TikTok, users are jokingly addressing love letters, tributes, and thank yous to fictional Chinese spies. The ones, the meme goes, who pose the national security threat the US government aims to thwart with the looming TikTok ban, which is slated to go into effect on January 19.

“If we don’t get to hang out anymore, I just want to thank you for the good times we had,” comedian Lisandra Vazquez says in one clip on the video-sharing site. “I just know it was you looking out for me and sending me those tarot readers telling me that he was no good for me.” In a different video, TikToker Gabriella Rose lugs a suitcase down a snowy sidewalk, back to the camera. “Me because I’d rather move to China than Instagram Reels,” the overlaid text says.

The end of TikTok in the United States is (most likely) nigh. But it’s TikTok users who are having the last laugh.

Last Friday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments from the government and TikTok about the app’s fate. The government made its case that the court should uphold the ban, which was signed into law by President Biden last year and stipulates that Chinese owner ByteDance must sell TikTok’s US operations to domestic owners or be blocked. TikTok, of course, argued the opposite, citing the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court has yet to issue its decision, but experts believe it’s unlikely the court will side with the popular video-sharing app. It’s unclear whether TikTok will go dark on January 19 or fade away, yet its time on some 170 million Americans’ phones seems to be rapidly dwindling. Like a condemned building, US TikTok will likely fall apart little by little until it’s no longer hospitable.

But a win for the US government is the people’s loss, particularly as lawmakers have failed to meet this moment by adequately convincing citizens that TikTok needs to go. Sure, the app has Americans’ data—as do most apps created right here in the US. A security risk? The vibe seems to be “so what.” Americans aren’t just protesting the ban. They’re revolting, lining up to hand off their data to Chinese companies. Xiaohongshu, otherwise known as RedNote, has soared to the top of the charts; close on its heels is another app owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, Lemon8.

In December, in a piece about Luigi Mangione and the “blackpilling” of America—a descent into disillusionment—Vox writer Rebecca Jennings described a general malaise settling over the masses: “All swaths of Americans increasingly appear to find themselves in a nihilistic mood …They’re disenchanted with the economy and feeling pessimistic about climate change, the dating market, and their own loneliness. They’re losing faith in nearly every major US institution, from the public school system to police departments, the military, unions, organized religion and, of course, the media.”

That feeling could also describe much of the attitude toward social media platforms in 2025. X, once considered the town square of the internet, is lousy with trolls, hate speech, and propaganda. Meta, seemingly following in X’s and Elon Musk’s footsteps, is rolling back fact-checking and hate speech protections on Facebook and Instagram at a breakneck pace. Social platforms are poised to become even more poisonous to their own users as a handful of outrageously rich and powerful men grapple with their own insecurities around masculinity and free speech.

TikTok, in comparison, was not just another social platform. It was personalized, helpful even. I’ve been an avid TikToker for years; it’s a platform that taught me recipes, curly hair care, how to find financial resources, art tutorials, workout routines, plant care, and so much more. It’s had a more positive material influence on my life than any other platform, a feeling shared by many American users. Is that personal impact more important than listening to dry explanations from the government on foreign influence? Just ask the TikTokers now learning Mandarin as they migrate to RedNote.

Other TikTok users are spending what appear to be the app’s final days saying goodbye. “To my Chinese spy watching me through my phone,” reads one, “I will miss you.” End times on the app are full of creators asking their audiences to follow them elsewhere, while also using every last second to dunk on their own country and its efforts to ban an app while much larger problems persist. “National fucking security risk?” user Bryan Andrews says in a video with 27 million views. “Yeah fucking right.”

We’re long past the days where TikTok was thought of as just that app where people posted lip syncs and dances. Today it’s a powerhouse, a finely tuned machine churning out memes, jokes, fashion trends, news, music, slang, and so much more faster than any modern social platform.

TikTok’s success exists on both a macro and micro level, dictating both cultural trends and offering individuals the ability to curate a specific sort of lifestyle through a feed that constantly evolves based on your interests. It gave artists a better platform to have their work seen by people all over the world. It helped victims in war-torn countries get their message overseas. It created a new generation of small business owners, an incalculable number of people who were able to financially bootstrap themselves into better lives by building an audience.

The threat the US government claims TikTok poses holds little interest for the average American. Indeed, younger generations have always existed in a highly online world where their privacy has been exposed, sometimes since birth. As TikTok user crutches_and_spice put it: “I don’t fucking care that China has my data! Are you joking? Everybody has my data.”