The tease of a potential TikTok ban is bringing people all over the world together as people reminisce on the downfall of MySpace, Tumblr, and Vine: ‘I’ve played these games before!’

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Longtime social media users have seen this before—kind of. Previously popular social media platforms such as MySpace, Tumblr, and especially, Vine, tell us the same story, time and time again. Social media users seek genuine connection, entertainment, knowledge, and even news on these platforms. That’s what they’re there for! However, the probable TikTok ban has threatened the peace of many users because they fear they will not be able to reap the same benefits that TikTok provided on other apps such as Instagram and X. 

 

The core difference between the loss of TikTok and the slow fade-out of formerly popular platforms like Tumblr, MySpace, and Vine is that it is not organic.

 

The U.S. TikTok Ban

The United States TikTok ban was loosely formulated in July 2020 by government officials and the idea was “reinforced” by President Trump soon after. After years of hearsay, social media users believed that the risk of a social media ban was low, especially because the same fear was instilled every year thereafter and TikTok would always be up and running the next day.

 

Well, late into 2024, it became clear that TikTok was actually on the chopping block. On January 17th, the Supreme Court upheld the ban, and at around 10:30 P.M. EST on the 18th, TikTok was no longer running in the U.S. Funnily enough, the app was back up less than 24 hours later with a “Welcome back!” message from TikTok thanking “President” Trump for making the magic happen. As of today, TikTok is legally banned in the United States but is still working for users who have the app downloaded already. However, some users have noticed a shift in their algorithm after TikTok went back online Sunday morning. Instead of funny videos, news clips, and other content users have consumed since TikTok’s early days, folks are being handfed right-leaning content and noticing their words are being censored. Now, President Trump has signed an executive order to keep TikTok “safe” for 75 days until the new administration can figure out a way forward. This has been the hottest topic of 2025 so far, especially when multiple generations of social media users have flocked forth and shared their experiences about the formerly popular social media platforms lost to time.

 

MySpace and Tumblr are Obsolete, Vine Is Just Plain Gone

Social media platforms go through some growing pains after a happy few years of being the hottest platform online. MySpace was the platform to have a social media presence in the early 2000s. You were able to customize your homepage, learn some HTML and CSS, all the while feeling like the first cool kid in your high school who called dibs on a Daft Punk song to be played whenever your profile was viewed. Life felt complete. But as Friendster met its match, MySpace did, too—enter Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook minions. You know the deal. Users were so eager to connect with one another that they bounced from internet space to internet space in hopes they’d be able to solidify their online community—the same goes for Tumblr and Instagram. These parallels do not exist to suggest that the platforms are completely obsolete, but more so to emphasize that their heyday was really just their heyday and nothing more. It was downhill from there.

 

Vine was a different beast. Though no app replaced Vine before its eventual demise, the death of the company sprung forth because of internal “managerial disorder” in addition to everything else that could’ve gone wrong in keeping Vine on track for success—politics, strategic dissonance, etc. The app was glorified for its ability to make comedic short-form content work so well, but as soon as it had really boomed, it felt like it was taken away. It always hurts extra when you’re not ready to let go. That’s why when TikTok was set to be banned, millennials and older Gen Z social media users felt required to remind everyone that they have, indeed, been here before.

Reactions to the Ban

Though everyone was moping around on TikTok posting throwbacks of the app’s finest trends and moments, others were taking to the platform to remind everyone that this wasn’t their first rodeo. Vine was taken from their cold, shaky hands long before TikTok was, and they found a way to connect with others and consume content suitable to them regardless of which app they were on.

 

Folks have been utilizing a Squid Game season two sound bite containing the phrase, “I’ve played these games before” to emphasize just how ready they are for whatever comes their way—whether that is a new app similar to TikTok or a Meta app that they plan on boycotting. Speaking of Meta, TikTokers hate it. Meta has been lobbying against TikTok, and folks speculate it’s so the billionaire owner and investors of Meta can sit on a larger throne of cash with TikTok out of the picture. And, because Meta is a big moral no-no for TikTokers, they turn to Red Note (more on that later).

One commenter states that TikTok users might have a slight trauma bond with the platform because it was the key to the outside world during the early days of 2020 when we were all going stir-crazy stuck inside. The very thread of human connection in a period of disconnection was TikTok, despite all the yet-to-be-proven fears surrounding foreign entity data collection. You would think that the probable ban of an app would leave everyone fending for themselves in a state of panic, but instead, everyone is actually just starting to get along well—in America and across the globe.

 

Red Note or “Xiaohongshu”

If TikTok, a Singaporean-owned company, was subjected to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accusations by the U.S. government, social media users figured they could get really petty and run with these accusations. So, they booked it to the next app download, a little Pinterest/Instagram/TikTok hybrid called “Xiaohongshu,” which is owned by a Chinese company and available on U.S. app stores. “Xiaohongshu” directly translates to “Little Red Book” but has taken on the nickname “Red Note”—likely to suppress potential communist propaganda/implications. So, the government, in a sense, sent TikTokers to an actual CCP-affiliated social media platform because they allegedly lied about TikTok having CCP affiliations. Tiktokers know how to hit ‘em where it hurts—and it’s hilarious!

 

The Great Firewall has lessened interactions between Chinese citizens and the rest of the world, especially since TikTok does not exist in China and is replaced by a similar app called Douyin. When Americans realized this app was available on their app stores, it was like a great social media migration. U.S. Red Note users even started calling themselves “TikTok refugees” and have begun translating their English comments into Mandarin for native Chinese users. One TikToker reminds rookie Red Note users that they are “guests” in China’s internet home and should act as such—but overall, the Chinese and Americans are getting along great on the app.

 

Over the last few days, folks have been in love with Xiaohongshu. Discourse on culture, food, literature, and everything in between have been running rampant and some are considering leaving TikTok for good because this alternative fits their needs in ways they didn’t understand before. Remember what I said about hopping from internet space to internet space? Finding a space to call “home” is difficult when your favorite apps keep getting worse, are shutting down, or are banned by the government.

D**ned_chicken on Reddit

Let’s Reflect

As a result of the TikTok ban, users all over the world have come together to support, interact, and give thanks to one another in ways they didn’t know were possible. The main idea here is that social media may not be everything, but it is a lot.

 

To say social media doesn’t matter in an age of digital innovation is a lie. The post-2020 world has changed the concept of human interaction drastically. Humans rely on social media to stay connected, keep themselves entertained, and hopefully consume reliable, unbiased information on current events. To say the banning of TikTok doesn’t matter is also a lie. Folks have learned more about culture, literature, health diagnoses, mental health, art, etc. than ever before.

 

Even with the downfall of MySpace, Tumblr, Vine, and the rest of the platforms lost to time, humans know how to persevere. Red Note continues to steadily gain popularity every day, and it’s only a matter of time before TikTok meets its match like Friendster, MySpace, and Tumblr have long ago. Generations have bonded on TikTok not only because the app allows for that, but because the app may no longer allow for that, too. That’s kind of beautiful. If all else fails, make sure to drop your Red Note ID so we can all stay in touch when TikTok perishes.

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