Years ago, in her college dorm room, Sarah Perl posted her first viral TikTok, a video of her conducting a tarot reading. She knew then that her life would change overnight. Posting consistently under the handle @hothighpriestess, Perl, age 24, has more than 2.5 million subscribers and an in-demand manifesting coaching business. But all that stands to change within a couple of days.
“It's hard to even imagine a world without TikTok,” Perl says, noting the app is integrated into the life of the average consumer and business owner. “It's hard to prep when I'm still getting emails about brand deals happening in February on TikTok. It just seems like for most people, it's kind of business as usual.”
TikTok’s fate in the U.S. remains up in the air, though the forecast looks a little dire. In April, a bipartisan bill citing security concerns was passed. The law demanded the owner of the social media app, ByteDance, sell its app to a U.S. operation or be banned by January 19th 2025. Now the case is being heard by the Supreme Court. Rumors of potential owners have cropped up and even President Trump (who has spoken out on TikTok) has been suggested as a potential ally. On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the ban which is now set to begin this Sunday.
Pushing for a delay in the ban, Sen. Schumer noted the potential economic blow that the removal of the app would have on creators. " It's clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans of so many influencers," he said.
Even so, TikTok creators are bracing for a world of change.
"The possibility of a TikTok ban is definitely raising red flags for us," Christine Ly and Olivya Soth, the minds behind viral slime account OG Slimes wrote in an emailed statement to Fortune. “TikTok is an important part of our marketing strategy, but we’re prepared to adapt," the two creators explain, adding that they are strengthening marketing on platforms like Instagram and YouTube as well as considering paid advertising.
What started out as a passion project for Ly back in 2016 became a TikTok channel followed by 1.7 million people and an Instagram account by more than a million. Their brand posts ASMR-style videos and sells an average of 3,000 orders a month, they told Fortune in 2022. Documents shared with Fortune then showed that the company earned $100,000 or more in monthly revenue. They add that TikTok “has been a major contributor” to sales and videos posted on the platform “often lead to products selling out.”
While entrepreneurs with millions of followers certainly have a lot to lose from a ban, they’re not likely to be the main ones to feel the economic blow of the app disappearing entirely.
“Most people don't make a living off of TikTok,” Jess Maddox, researcher of social media and associate professor at The University of Alabama, told Fortune in an interview, citing data from LinkTree, which found 70% of creators make less than $49,000 annually.
Maddox likens the true impact of a ban to the economic scope of the SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023. While many at the time erroneously assumed actors were living large, the vast majority of the union is full of underpaid working actors. It’s not that dissimilar for TikTok, as Maddox notes that those who will have a harder time pivoting will be micro-influencers with fewer than 300,000 followers.
Perl acknowledges that creators who are just starting out will be hit hard, saying that a pivot might be difficult for those who have seen “explosive success, but don't quite have the foundations in place.”
How TikTok led the creator economy
Rachel Muse, 29, became a full-time content creator while pregnant with her daughter. “It has been such a blessing to be able to work while spending my days with her at home,” she told Fortune in an interview. “Honestly I have so much fun doing it, it still doesn’t feel real that it is my job.”
Muse has more than 150,000 TikTok followers and a small clothing business named Esther to her name. She notes that there’s opportunity on TikTok for “different streams of income and growth is amazing for both businesses and creators.”
Perl figures that the bulk of her fame and revenue came from TikTok. She posits that at the right time, TikTok had the potential to make anyone dedicated enough go viral.
“Never in history has there been a time as easy as now to within a year make $10,000 a month off of business,” she says. “It's almost foolproof, I'd honestly be willing to put money behind it.” Perl estimates she’s made over $1 million from her business in general, and documents viewed by Fortune show that she’s made in the high six figures each year in revenue.
Her other venture, a product-based business where she sells journals and vision boards on TikTok shop, is most in jeopardy if the app shuts down. “We'd probably lose upwards of six figures a month, potentially in revenue,” if the app is banned, she estimates, adding that they’d lose affiliate money as well.
It’s harder to sell products on Instagram, and due to the lack of a for-you page, it’s sometimes more difficult to go viral. “The beauty of TikTok was that anyone could post a video on a random Tuesday and there was a high likelihood that overnight that video could get a million views, whereas Instagram definitely takes longer,” she says, noting that you can still make it big, but it’s a tougher journey.
While major creators have a built-in following and likely can adjust platforms easily, most everyone else stands to feel a bit of a blow. Small businesses and creators who rely heavily on TikTok for exposure and revenue will be impacted the most, Ly and Soth note.
“These people are staunchly middle-class Americans, combined with TikTok Shop, which is primarily used by small businesses to grow their reach,” Maddox says. “We are talking about a huge economic hit to middle-class Americans, a group that is already struggling with inflation and other economic issues right now.”
What’s in store for creators
While TikTok might be at the end of the line, the viral voices that uplift the app are likely sticking around for some time. “Creators will pivot, they're resilient,” says Maddox. “They will be okay, but this is an undue burden of trying to readjust in this under these conditions if the ban does go through.”
As for Muse, she says she’s not wasting time thinking about what she can’t control. “It’s such a gift to document and share the things I love and I plan to continue doing so on other platforms like Instagram and YouTube,” she says. “I don’t think that short-form video is going anywhere and though it technically makes my job harder, being anxious about that won’t help the situation at all”
Indeed, TikTok “lessened the barrier to entry” for creators, explains Maddox. Explaining that it’s “not an accident that we saw a huge explosion of content creation in the United States because of Tiktok,” she explains that the app did more interface for users than those using reels or making Forced to jump ship from TikTok, viral creators risk loosing thousands of dollars a month Shorts. Perl figures she’ll put more emphasis on Instagram posts, noting that she might lose thousands of dollars a month initially.
While Ly and Soth expect their primary source of marketing to take a hit if TikTok is banned, they’ve “heard rumors there are apps similar to TikTok that people are starting to use now.” For now, some young creators are moving to Chinese app Xiaohongshu, or Red Note.
“I'm not planning on going anywhere,” says Perl. “If this happens, I know I'm going to pivot. I see the opportunity in being one of the first creators to start on a new platform, that also is exciting.”
