Nat: TikTok
Ahmadi: It’s making them money
Gillian Riley: I’m gonna go into debt probably without it.
Ahmadi: and bringing them community
Tola Jegede: The numbers feel fake.
Ahmadi: But with a previous ban and possibly another on the way… TikTok’s future is unknown, and Generation Z is nervous.
Campus influencer Gillian Riley, or better known as Life with Gill on TikTok, has more than 120 thousand followers and more than 8M likes on the app.
It all started when she posted a review of UNC’s dining hall food.
Nat: Riley reviewing food
Riley: Then I woke up the next morning and it had about a hundred thousand views or so. So I was kind of like, okay, wait, this is crazy.
Ahmadi: Now, it’s a form of income for the first-year student. But, with the fate of TikTok up in the air, many college influencers are left wondering what comes after 60 second videos and viral moments.
Riley: The fact that all these things can be taken away is just really scary and I would feel like definitely really upset and it’s not the end of the world but it definitely would feel pretty awful.
Ahmadi: Tola Jegede is another campus influencer with more than 12 thousand followers. She says she was shocked when TikTok was initially banned.
Tola: I was actually with my friends and everyone was low-key screaming, like, no, my TikTok, my drafts.
Ahmadi: But unlike Gill, Tola deleted TikTok when she discovered the ban.
Tola: So in my head I was like, okay, this is serious. The app is gone, an app that I did really well on, let me put that same energy into something else.
Ahmadi: Meredith Clark is a journalist, professor and media consultant. She says the TikTok ban is less about influencers sharing their messages, and more about first amendment rights.
Clark: we’ve spent a number of years talking about so-called cancel culture and that being censorship. And the difference is that when someone is canceled, you know, that comes from the people, it comes from individuals, it does not come from the government.
Ahmadi: Clark says creators need to understand that no platform is here to stay.
Clark: So that is the challenge, thinking about what are the other communication channels that can be built or relied upon right now in the event that TikTok, as we know it does go away.
Ahmadi: Jade Walters is a 2021 Howard University graduate and the founder of The Ninth Semester, an early career resource blog. Walters has amassed more than 60 thousand TikTok followers, teaching young people how to find internships and their first jobs. Her advice for other Gen-Zers afraid of a looming ban:
Walters: The post is always moving in the creative industry and you need to find out where that is and move with that and grow with that.
Ahmadi: Trump’s delay of the ban will expire in April. Until then, college creators are stocking up on views and saving every cent.
I’m Madeleine Ahmadi reporting.
