TikTok creators mourn app where ‘overnight’ success is possible

This is not the first time a major social media platform has disappeared.

In 2017, Vine – a platform where users could share up to six-second-long video clips – shut down.

For creators at the time, it was a shock.

Q Park, a content creator with 37.7 million followers on TikTok, was one of those people.

He spent years building a following on Vine – the only platform he used at the time – and when it disappeared, he said it “felt like my whole business was shutting down”.

But in some ways, it was good for him, too. It forced him to learn how to create different content for different audiences.

“That experience showed me that if you have faith in your ability to create content, you’ll build a following somewhere else,” Mr Park told the BBC.

As the ban approaches, some creators have started flocking to another Chinese platform, RedNote – a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.

RedNote was the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store earlier this week.

While some creators are diversifying where they post in hopes of growing audiences elsewhere, others are hoping the ban won’t come to fruition.

“TikTok is a beast,” Park said. “Part of me thinks it might be too big to fail.”

“It will be revived somehow, it’s too big of an economy now.”

Additional reporting from Grace Dean and Nathalie Jimenez.