Gen Z fears TikTok ban would make them ‘digital refugees’ — vows to snub Instagram: ‘Humiliation ritual’
Tick, tock.
It’s only a matter of time before the fate of TikTok is decided as many of its users have said they’ll refuse to migrate to its competitor, Instagram Reels, should the popular video platform be banned.
A bill forcing the sale or ban of TikTok — which is estimated to have over 1 billion active users — passed in the House of Representatives and was signed by President Joe Biden this week, leaving the app’s future, and the future of its most popular influencers, uncertain. But, according to Business Insider, creators in limbo are refusing to transition to Instagram Reels, a preference consistent with the recent cultural shift away from Meta apps.
Posting to Instagram, says Gen Z content creator Josie, is a “humiliation ritual.”
“The TikTok ban bill was just passed in the House, which is a bummer,” she said in a recent video online, explaining that she would prefer not to transition to Instagram to post for her former high school peers to see.
“I don’t know about that,” continued Josie, who is preparing for the end of TikTok as we know it by archiving her content.
When a TikTok ban was proposed in 2020, creators vowed to jump ship and grow their following through Instagram Reels, which had just been introduced to the Meta platform. Such a solution now, however, seems unlikely.
In 2022, The Atlantic declared that the platform was “over” while TikTokers called it “embarrassing.” Gen Zer Gabrielle Yap told Insider that Instagram is too curated for her liking, saying it feels overly “polished.” Some creators previously told The Post that the ability to purchase a coveted blue check mark made the app’s shiny allure dim.
As the fate of the ByteDance-owned app once again hangs in the balance, some creators are considering a move to YouTube Shorts or Clapper, a video-based app billed as an adult version of TikTok.
“My unpopular opinion is that YouTube Shorts has the next best algorithm to TikTok,” 1998-born Kat, who did not provide her last name and works in social media, told Insider.
“I think if TikTok was banned I would go there. Obviously, it wouldn’t be as good.”
Gen Z, however, has not yet reached a consensus over which platform would be an adequate substitute to TikTok, and some hypothesize the social-savvy generation would be scattered across multiple apps.
“We’d probably splinter off into a million different places, bombarding our friends and followers with ‘come follow me here’ messages across every social media platform imaginable,” Yap told Insider.
“We’d be like digital refugees, lost and a little scared, but you bet we’d rebuild our online communities somewhere, somehow.”
But the end of TikTok in the US might even push some Zoomers off socials indefinitely.
Jaxson Whittle, an elder Zoomer, admitted it would be the perfect excuse to “get off social media,” while his friends are more willing to relocate to the ‘Gram out of trend FOMO (that is, fear of missing out).
“I feel like Instagram is pushing Reels so hard that it’s pretty easy to click on something and fall into the infinite scroll,” he told Insider.
Yap, however, is optimistic that Gen Z will find its own corner in the vastness of the internet to fill “with memes, Gen Z humor and enough sarcasm to fuel the whole nation,” she quipped.
TikTok, however, has vowed to fight back at the Biden-backed bill that would force its parent company ByteDance to divest its US assets within 270 days.
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” a spokesperson from the social media platform told The Post this week.
“This ban would devastate 7 million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.”
