What The TikTok Ban Reveals About Americans

"If we continue down this path — we're fucked"

Let’s be honest. Our society is addicted.

As much as the narrative about this ban is about freedom of speech or how people make a living from TikTok, the outrage is really about “don’t take my addiction away — I need my vice.”

As of January 2025, TikTok has approximately 170 million users in the United States. Among these, a 2024 Statista survey indicated that 6% (10.2 million) consider themselves full-time content creators.*

This suggests that 94% (160 million) of US TikTok users primarily engage as viewers.

Viewers = Users.

That’s the first thing this ban reveals. We have no purpose in life and are addicted to an app that shows cat videos. We want to keep that addiction of seeing cat videos so that our attention is taken away from the fact that we have no purpose.

This point is the main takeaway revealed to us by the outrage from society, but for completeness’s sake, let’s touch on the other aspects of what the ban reveals.