It’s been a banner weekend for zombification.
TikTok was found dead at his home in the United States on Saturday after a fatal collision with the Supreme Court. The popular social media app — owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance — was known for its vibrant community of creators and a “special sauce” algorithm that scared the pants off congressional lawmakers last spring. Having survived on more than 170 million US users, the platform changed pop culture and entertainment marketing as we know it forever. She was only 7.
A day later, Sunday, January 19, the president-elect Donald Trump seemingly helped bring TikTok back to life. The night before his inauguration has been a critical deadline since Congress agreed that the app would have to divest itself from ByteDance or face a nationwide ban by April 2024. Caught at the intersection of free speech and national security, the software that powers the platform is considered among the most valuable technological the assets of the world. ByteDance has not been forced to sell, however TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday along with fellow tech moguls Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. All will sit in positions of honor in the stands.
“Thank you for your patience and support,” TikTok’s welcome screen read mid-Sunday, just hours after the platform went dark and disappeared from app stores. “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US! You can continue to create, share and discover everything you love on TikTok.”
Data is king in 2025, and concerns about China’s influence over TikTok are twofold. What information does ByteDance have about US users that China might want? And what content is TikTok feeding Americans that China might benefit from? Those issues have yet to be resolved, but the promise of an executive order from Trump was enough to restore the app and delay enforcement of the law. The decision was upheld by the country’s highest court late last week and will “most likely” be delayed for at least 90 days, per Trump. The extension will give TikTok and government officials more time to compromise. It also stands to cement the platform as a Trump-backed part of the American consciousness. Despite the former and future president’s attempts to block it during his last term, Trump signed his name to both ends of TikTok’s whiplash weekend.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok when he takes office,” the app read overnight while it was temporarily unusable to scores of outraged users.
Who decides what is censored from the American people—and why—is paramount in a world increasingly driven by digital interaction. As content moderation efforts are rolled back on Meta (affecting both Facebook and Instagram) and X continues its confused crusade (check out Musk fumbling the latest PR mess with the player contingent), TikTok represents a kind of final frontier for contemporary political discourse. It’s also the next step in Trump’s bid to gain control over the audiences and performers who rejected him in 2024 and 2020.
Opposing big names from Taylor Swift to Beyoncé, Trump took a swipe at the entertainment industry last election with the failed but still viral Kamala Harris campaign. Her bid for presidential power may have fallen short — but on TikTok, everything from Charli XCX’s “Brat” to loved the coconut tree meme and “Saturday Night Live” clip exemplified how entertainment continues to drive conversation despite countless struggles the industry faces. Even as countless creatives flounder to get by in the tortured economy that got Trump elected, pop culture drives political opinion.
The week before the TikTok ban, Trump named actors Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone as “Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.” The announcement was made on social media and promised to make Hollywood great again: “BIGGER, BETTER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!” wrote Trump. The returning president only has 15 million followers on TikTok, but the appearance of his name on the app’s welcome screen was still startling to many. Even those who mainly longed for the good old days — for that dopamine-heavy carousel of cats and dogs, purple milkshakes, choreographed dances and endless PR opportunities – during TikTok’s brief absence remarked that such a divisive figure became the platform’s de facto mascot.
If you use TikTok, you know the app was mostly back to normal on Sunday night. Creators whose incomes were threatened by the ban have cheered, while several political commentators on TikTok are using it to express concern about Trump’s pivot. An old audio clip from “Family Guy” — which became popular among worried users as a kind of doomsday cry before the ban — is still trending.
“Since we’re all going to die, there’s one more secret I feel I must share with you,” says Peter Griffin before delivering one of the most harrowing bits of film criticism ever. “I didn’t care “The Godfather.””
Like a consiglieri in a turf war, the mob returning to TikTok this weekend is doing so in the shadow of Trump’s White House. That’s good or bad depending on your personal politics, but there’s no doubt that it’s just the beginning of what’s already shaping up to be one of the most high-profile entertainment stories of the year. Whether or not ByteDance continues to operate in the US, this weekend changed the pop culture landscape more than any other TikTok moment. Now on to this – the night before our President’s Other inauguration — the festivities continue, even as Hollywood chokes on an offer it couldn’t refuse.
