“When was the last time you read a book?” I ask. Silence on the other end of the phone. A beat, two, then three. Finally, a reply: “I read,” in a clipped, defensive tone. “I read The New York Times, thank you.” Definitely defensive, and for good reason—I have accused my mother of rotting her brain on TikTok.
My mother’s social media habits aside, the fateful day of the TikTok Ban is upon us. January 19, 2025, when Chinese parent company ByteDance must sell the social media platform to a neutral party or shut it down in the U.S. Previously, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew stated that the app would “go dark” in the United States for its 170 million users (it stopped working close to 11 p.m. on January 18). It will be removed from the Google and Apple app stores for potential new users. Additionally, it will become inaccessible to current users. Additionally, the app will no longer receive security updates and will not be available on a web browser. Millions of influencers, content creators, and passive viewers are losing a large chunk of their income, social interactions, and entertainment.
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[RELATED: Universal Music Group Will Pull Entire Catalog From TikTok, What That Means for Creators]
To Sell or Not To Sell
As of January 18, President-elect Trump stated that he would “most likely” issue a 90-day extension on the purchase window for TikTok. This would potentially allow ByteDance to sell the app. The problem with that is ByteDance doesn’t want to sell. The tech behind the algorithm that powers TikTok is allegedly more important to the company than the profit the app brings in, according to a Rolling Stonereport. However, the New York Timesreports that losing the U.S. market will be a huge blow to ByteDance in terms of revenue. Apparently, the U.S. brought in $10 million last year. To sell or not to sell—the justifications are convoluted at best.
The implications and arguments behind the ban are complicated and multilayered. But, there’s more than loss of revenue, passive income, or community to consider. There’s also the effect it will have on the music industry.
TikTok and the Music Industry: The Role of Social Media in Music Marketing
TikTok has been a crucial player in music marketing for the past five years, both professionally and independently. Established artists are advised to use social media to promote upcoming shows or albums. Meanwhile, emerging artists use the platforms to get their foot in the door, run their business, gain a following, and hopefully go viral. However, with the ban seemingly taking effect this weekend, that particular marketing well has run dry.
The music industry has relied on TikTok’s huge user base to make songs go viral. It’s even gone so far as to turn it into a formula for making new music. Labels tailor songs for TikTok’s virality, creating a certain style that heavily samples nostalgic hooks, according to a report by journalist Shaad D’Souza for The Guardian. Sometimes, this virality leads to success, such as with Mitski, Noah Kahan, and Olivia Rodrigo. However, most of the time this attempt to reverse engineer the secret formula results in a flash-in-the-pan success. Additionally, it also creates popularity in a vacuum—there’s not much of a real impact for many outside of TikTok.
“On TikTok the Creators Are Your Collaborators, Like it Or Not”
Additionally, artists like Florence Welch and Halsey have stated that their labels have actively urged them to create content on TikTok. In 2022, Welch eventually gave in to the pressure. “I was just, like, I am about to go into another meeting about this launch, and they are going to f—ing ask me why haven’t I done something,” she said according to a report from Stereogum. Allegedly, she took a liking to her particular community on the platform. But that may have more to do with the generally (and delightfully) strange nature of her fans and less to do with the nature of TikTok itself.
In a prior New Yorker feature by journalist John Seabrook, Welch was grappling with the idea of being on social media with the express purpose of going viral. This was allegedly a ploy to boost her streaming numbers when Dance Fever came out. Seabrook cut right to the marrow of the issue with TikTok: there are no social media managers. Artists must be involved in the content creation or risk being seen as disingenuous. “[U]nlike Instagram, where artists have control over their image,” Seabrook wrote, “on TikTok the creators are your collaborators, like it or not.”
Sure, TikTok has made it easy for viewers to find new music, support emerging artists, or elevate the next song of the moment. It was a useful tool for music discovery, but was it a lasting discovery? As D’Souza posited in his article, “…it’s never wise to place the fate of an entire industry in the hands of a private company whose motivations and modes of operation are opaque at best.”
Could the Ban Actually Be Helpful for the Industry?
The TikTok ban has the potential to do some good for the music industry, though. Without the pressure to be content creators on top of everything else, musicians can simply be musicians. If there’s no TikTok, there’s no potential to go viral. The pressure is off to market music in terms of virality. The formula becomes obsolete, and we start thinking of music as art again instead of simply a means to get the most exposure.
Maybe we heal our ravaged attention spans and short-term memory. Maybe we make the shift back to long-form content, or maybe we stop considering everything as “content” in the first place. Perhaps we make room for art again, for close listening, analysis, and—most importantly—simple enjoyment. Not everything has to include a dissertation. But a little consideration for more than 30 seconds of a song would be nice.
“You Have to Be a Product That’s Being Bought and Sold”
In a report from Fortune, a contributor described TikTok as “a jukebox.” However, with songs clocking in at 30 seconds maximum before viewers find the videos “stressful,” TikTok isn’t a jukebox. Mostly, it’s an advertisement. Any claims otherwise would be to fundamentally misinform listeners of TikTok’s true role in the music industry.
In the end, my mother tries to convince me of the merits of TikTok—community, education, fun at your fingertips. However, I keep thinking back to something Mitski said in a Vulture interview from 2022. Commenting on the dehumanizing nature of exploitation in the music industry—exploitation that is exacerbated by social media—she said, “You have to be a product that’s being bought and sold and consumed, and you have to perceive yourself that way in order to function.” If that’s the landscape we find ourselves in now, maybe TikTok does have to be banned to help us dig our way out of this commodified grave we’ve dug for ourselves.
Featured Image by Bianca de Vilar/WireImage