Enjoying short-form video content has become what I believe to be America’s second-favorite pastime, so what happens when one of the most popular platforms for it goes away? Though the new year brought what we were sure was TikTok’s imminent death, an app from across the globe was ready to welcome us with open arms.
As a young adult with the attention span of a young child, it’s no surprise I was one of the many TikTok addicts who were sad to see our beloved dopamine machine go.
I planned to spend the evening before the ban downloading some of my favorite videos and finding the creators I follow on other platforms. Maybe I was being a bit melodramatic, but after I had spent so much time on the app I truly felt like I was losing a part of my routine.
It was when I opened Tumblr for some good old-fashioned procrastination that I saw the words I had been dreading: TikTok is down in the United States.
I’ve never closed an app faster in my life. I thought I had the whole night to prepare for the death of my favorite waste of time. Sure enough, my scrolling was blocked by a notification that TikTok was no longer available.
I was shocked and disappointed, upset that all of the videos I could’ve saved and the creators I could have followed were lost to me forever. I was only able to access a handful of my recently liked videos before my entry to the app was cut off entirely by a black screen and an error message.
TikTok was gone, and the last video I would ever like on it was someone mixing pretzel-shaped colored sand with a palette knife.
I opened the app instinctively three more times that night before I finally decided it was time to move on. I had heard good things about RedNote, a similar app popular in China, in the days before the ban, so I figured that was as good a place to go as any. As I set up my account and began to scroll, my adventure as a “TikTok refugee” had officially begun.
Getting set up on RedNote is pretty straightforward and familiar: create your login method and select some of your interests to give the app a basic idea of what to put on your feed.
Most of the videos on my RedNote “For You” page were greeting the newcomers from TikTok, giving some advice on how to use the app, explaining Chinese internet slang and advertising their accounts to a new potential audience. It wasn’t long before I found some familiar faces from TikTok, though many of them were cats.
The energy was very welcoming, and I also found it refreshing to be able to see so much content from a different side of the world. RedNote users certainly know how to create the cottagecore garden of my dreams, and I was blown away by all of the amazing art and fashion.
Even though I felt like I had a lot of work ahead of me in curating my feed I looked forward to seeing what the app had to offer.
The user interface is fairly similar to TikTok, though there is a bit of a language barrier when it comes to searching and tags. RedNote has a largely Chinese-speaking user base, but many creators included English subtitles in their videos to make their content more accessible.
The features are also largely the same along with some small quality-of-life differences that I would love to see on TikTok, like pinch-to-activate clear display and an autoplay mode. There isn’t much of a learning curve, but helpful users and handy online guides alike are easy to find if you’re having trouble.
Although I was optimistic about my future explorations of the communities and content on RedNote, I would miss TikTok the same way I mourned the loss of Vine in 2017. Still, I was glad to have a promising new platform to spend my free time on. Though TikTok had gone dark, the future was bright.
I woke up the next morning to a surprising message from my friend. Despite living in the U.S., he was able to get back onto TikTok. Sure enough, the error message blocking me from scrolling was gone, and TikTok was officially back.
My “For You” page was a mixture of goodbyes from the previous night and shocked reactions to the ban being lifted. Many content creators had revealed behind the scenes details under the assumption they would never see TikTok again only to awkwardly realize that their platform wasn’t going anywhere.
My favorite example is from the official Duolingo account, which had finally unmasked their iconic mascot the night of the ban. Don’t worry Duo – I didn’t see anything.
I’ve since returned back to our favorite clock app for my doomscrolling needs, but RedNote has earned a place beside it on my phone. I probably would’ve spent a lot more time curating my desired content if TikTok hadn’t returned from the grave so quickly, so I have some algorithm-fiddling to do if I want to return to a more tailored feed in case the ban goes back into place.
Though the future of TikTok remains uncertain, I’m glad to know those of us who would have to abandon ship are welcome on RedNote.
