Older Influencers Search for the Next TikTok

At least three countries — Afghanistan, India and Pakistan — have banned the app nationwide, but only India cited privacy and security worries, according to the Associated Press. Almost three dozen countries, including the United States, are prohibiting the app on government-owned devices.

On March 23, members of Congress from both parties grilled TikTok’s Singapore-born chief executive Shou Zi Chew on Capitol Hill. TikTok began in China, ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing and a representative of China’s Communist Party has one of three seats on the board of a ByteDance subsidiary that is the Chinese version of TikTok.

American lawmakers aren’t convinced by Chew's argument that all U.S. user data will eventually be stored in the United States on servers that U.S.-based Oracle controls and thus be shielded from unauthorized foreign access. Chew conceded that ByteDance employees may currently have access to some U.S. data.

Nearly two months after the congressional hearings, Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok, raising the likelihood of court challenges. The law, which doesn’t go into effect until 2024, prohibits app stores in the state from letting users download the TikTok app. It remains to be seen how effective enforcement will be.

“Montana’s TikTok ban is laughably unconstitutional, but it’s also comically difficult to enforce,” said Evan Greer, director of the Boston advocacy group Fight For The Future. “The ban serves no purpose beyond political posturing. It does less than nothing to address valid concerns with TikTok's surveillance practices.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana is also opposed. 

“With this ban, Governor [Greg] Gianforte and the Montana legislature have trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment,” Keegan Medrano, policy director at the ACLU of Montana, said in a statement. “We will never trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points.”

7 in 10 worry about TikTok’s China ties

In recent days, 41 percent of American adults indicated support for a federal ban on TikTok, compared to 25 percent who oppose it, according to a Washington Post poll. More than 7 in 10 expressed concerns over TikTok’s Chinese ownership.

But the numbers are reversed among people who actually use TikTok daily. They oppose the ban 54 percent to 17 percent.

TikTok’s early reputation was as a platform for kids and teens to record funky dance videos. But people flock to it now for other reasons: to learn, be entertained, find recipes, socialize and promote causes and businesses. Celebrities along with large and small enterprises, including AARP, have embraced it.

To be sure, TikTok’s user base still skews young, but older adults and so-called grandfluencers are well represented. In 2021, 14 percent of those who had used TikTok in the U.S. were 50 to 64 and 4 percent were 65 and older, according to Pew Research.

Creators say TikTok’s formula is a winner

The prospect that TikTok could shut down in the United States is leaving some older adults scrambling for an alternative. Older TikTok creators that AARP interviewed said TikTok would be a hard act to follow.

TikTok doesn’t pay Helen Polise, 62, directly. She now has 767,000 followers under her @themuthership handle. But she makes money charging for videos that teach people the nuts and bolts of producing videos on TikTok and other apps.

She’s already hedging her bets. Beyond TikTok, she posts on YouTube, Instagram and a small emerging alternative called Clapper.

Michael Jamin of Los Angeles says he wants to diversify platforms but has more than 400,000 followers on TikTok.

COURTESY OF MICHAEL JAMIN

“I haven’t put all of my eggs in one basket,” she says. “I always realized that my TikTok audience was only my audience … as long as TikTok was around. … I’ve always [embraced] whatever the newest fad was.”

Boston-area public relations and crisis management professional Molly McPherson (@mollybmcpherson), 53, also has spread her social media presence across all the major outlets. TikTok doesn’t pay her directly either, but she has generated a lot of business from clients who have found her videos on the app. She posts on TikTok about five times a week and has 196,000 followers.

TikTok is “the only platform that has found the sweet spot between video, engagement and time viewing,” she says. McPherson doesn’t see Facebook as a viable alternative: “That ship has sailed.” She also notes that “I have 17,000 followers on Twitter. I can get 17,000 in a week on TikTok.”

McPherson has a regular dialogue with fellow creators of a similar age about ways “to drive people to newsletters and our other sites to support our business, just in case TikTok goes away.” One of those creators is Los Angeles television writer Michael Jamin (@michaeljaminwriter), 52. He posts writing and screenwriting tips on TikTok to build an audience for a book he’s writing and a tour he’s preparing.

Jamin has written for a long list of shows, including Beavis & Butthead and King of the Hill. He has 421,000 TikTok followers and says more than 7 million people saw one of his posts.

As with others interviewed, Jamin says he doesn’t want to be at the mercy of any single platform. But TikTok’s demise “would definitely hurt me … and be a shame.”

He isn’t certain where he or other creators might gravitate to next and admits it could be an outlet that doesn’t exist yet. What happens to TikTok has become a trending subject for the site’s creators, he says.

“You got to go wherever the fish are,” Jamin explains. “Wherever people start flooding to, that’s where you’ll go.”

This story, originally published March 24, 2023, has been updated with the news of Montana's TikTok ban.