For content creators, Jan. 19 isn't just the day before President Donald Trump takes office. It's the day they could lose TikTok — and the financial freedom it's brought some of them in the process.
The holiday season has been full of Hail Mary attempts from ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of social media app TikTok. In April, President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package that included legislation giving ByteDance roughly 270 days to sell the app or be blocked from US app platforms, like Apple's App store and Google Play. The plan, which was introduced after dozens of lawmakers argued its link to the Chinese government puts Americans' data at risk, is set to go before the Supreme Court on Jan. 10.
On its own, critics of the ban — including top TikTok executives — have said that it would violate Americans' right to freedom of speech and take away a valuable source of news and information at the top of a new presidential administration. But across for-you-pages, TikTok users are saying they're nervous about something people seem to be downplaying: their money. “Influencers aren't out of touch for crying about the TikTok ban,” beauty and lifestyle creator Cora Lakely said in a recent video. “You're out of touch for not realizing this is a real industry.”
According to 2021 data from ByteDance, TikTok has 1.9 million daily active users spread over 150 countries, a force that makes up the app's niche communities and sections. But one of the reasons the app has remained so successful in the United States is its constant development of payout methods for creators. There's the creator program that gives users monthly payouts for a combination of views, shares, and engagement rates with their followers. The varied rate of these factors means the number isn't ever exactly the same — but creators with consistent posting schedules can easily factor in their expected earnings. Monetization pathways also include TikTok Shop, the feature introduced in Sept. 2023 that allows users to shop directly on the app. When people buy objects through a creator's link, the poster gets a kickback — a cash amount that can quickly grow when they're selling their own product through the apps. There isn't a bigger social media platform that has this feature, meaning if TikTok goes away, so does these posters' cash.
Much of the talk around finances on the app has remained largely antagonistic against large-scale influencers. Users have joked that a ban will finally force big-name creators to get real jobs or join the real world. But smaller creators say this mindset completely leaves them out of the equation. 'TikTok being banned is going to hurt me financially and I'm not an influencer. I'm not a big creator,” posted one emotional TikTok user, who said she usually only has around $122 left after bills for food, gas, and her mother's medical supplies each month. “I entered the creative rewards program in July and I started making TikTok Shop videos once a month in July as well. It's not been life-changing money, but it has been life-saving money for me. I don't mean to be dramatic but it has saved us. I'm going to have to go back to figuring out how to survive.”
Paulina Hoong, a 29-year-old from California, grew up in rural Minnesota. But when she got older, she tells Rolling Stone, she wanted to find ways to explore and celebrate her Chinese-American heritage. She began her small art business and print shop Menmin Made in 2021, but it was joining TikTok Shop that jump-started its success, enough so that running the shop is now her full-time job.
“TikTok has helped me financially support myself 100 percent. Not only have I found an online impact but also the videos have helped me gain customers in person. I do a lot of pop-up shop events in the Bay Area,” Hoong says. “A significant [number] of my customers often get excited to see my art in person and they will often purchase goods on the spot because they first saw my art on TikTok!”
Hoong notes that even though her online website will still be functional if a ban goes into effect, the loss of TikTok shop would lose her close to $2,000 every month. “Losing TikTok Shop would be the most difficult part,” she says. “Customers often get platform-funded coupons that I wouldn't be able to fund myself.”
The small business impact has been just one of the dozens of consequences lawyers and lobbyists for TikTok have highlighted in the fight to save the app. “Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the TikTok Ban is halted,” a spokesperson for TikTok told Rolling Stone in a statement. “In 2023 alone, the advertising, marketing, and organic reach on TikTok contributed $24.2 billion, and TikTok's own operations contributed an additional $8.5 billion to the US GDP.”
With the Supreme Court's decision, the extended timeframe of a potential ban has given creators time to prepare other options, but without a comparable platform to switch to, there's nothing much for users to do besides urging people to follow them on other apps, brace for impact, and hope for a holiday miracle.
“I think people don't understand that so many people rely on TikTok for their livelihoods,” Hoong says. “I'm actually glad that there has been back and forth regarding the ban because at least it gives me more time to use the platform — first as a business, but also as a consumer. It also gives me hope that the ban could go away. I know there's a small chance, but I am hoping!”
