Jessai Flores

Within hours of his inauguration on Monday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the enforcement of a ban on TikTok — a social media platform for creating and sharing short videos — that had taken effect and been reversed the previous day.

The move tossed a lifeline to TikTok, its millions of American users and especially to the online careers of Yale’s influencers.

“I didn’t take the ban very seriously until a few days before it came into effect,” said Grant Tucker ’27, who has amassed over 83,000 followers on TikTok by posting college lifestyle and admissions-related content. 

“The legislation back in April of 2024 challenging TikTok was countered fairly quickly, and it at least seemed like this hardline policy wouldn’t come into effect for quite some time. Especially with [TikTok] CEO Chew meeting with Trump at his estate, it appeared like there was time to smooth things over.”

Tucker told the News that the uncertain future for TikTok has proven to be an interruption with creating content. He admitted to having to download all of his videos from his page, even going as far as screen recording his profile to retain some sort of “proof” prior to the ban.

TikTok briefly went dark on Sunday in the initial hours after the ban took effect, but the app was restored later that day, citing support from Trump.

Before the brief ban took hold, Tucker ended up creating a quick post to try to migrate his followers over to a new Instagram page as it became immediately clear that “regardless of the length of this ban, Tik Tok may not be around much longer.”

“I am forced to seriously consider establishing another strong presence on either Instagram or Youtube, instead of solely relying on Tik Tok, which is not an easy task to accomplish,” said Tucker. “Considering I have integrated myself pretty deeply into the niche I occupy, which is college lifestyle and admissions-help content. Trying to ‘blow-up’ again or go viral is even harder in that regard.”

Echoing Tucker’s decision, many of Yale’s influencers ultimately decided to migrate their content and push their followers over to other social media platforms in light of TikTok’s uncertain future.

Sunny Vuong ’27, who has over 1,250 followers on TikTok, said that while she was initially unsure of how to proceed with content, she ultimately decided to download all of her videos and plans to repost them on YouTube. 

“It’s something I’d been planning for a while, but the ban definitely gave me that impetus to actually try out another platform,” said Vuong.

Crawford Arnow ’27 voiced concerns with the possibility of having to switch platforms to continue posting content. Arnow, who has the largest following of any Yale influencer on TikTok with 964,000 followers, only has around 39,500 followers on Instagram.

Arnow told the News that for the past month he has been reposting all of his videos on Instagram to make the switch in platforms as smooth as possible.

“This sounds so cheesy and sappy, but you build up a community that you’re posting for every day,” said Arnow. “And so I was like, ‘Hey, you’ll find me over on Instagram as well, if you want to move over there [with me].”

Arnow also found Instagram to be less conducive to promoting the type of relatable content that he produces, calling the platform a “totally different beast than TikTok.” While TikTok boosts videos over 15 seconds, Instagram tends to favor shorter clips.

In addition to losing large follower bases, Yale influencers are also poised to lose business opportunities if a permanent ban were to go into effect at the end of the 90-day extension.

“I work with high school students every year to help them get into their dream colleges, and I gain the majority of my clients from videos I post on TikTok,” said Tucker. “If TikTok really does get banned, I essentially lose a business. Thus, I need to begin establishing a presence elsewhere, on a more ‘stable’ platform. This simply means I need to put that much more effort into reaching a larger audience and growing my channel, which again, is no small thing.”

Christian Phanhthourath ’28, a first-year influencer who also posts lifestyle and college-related content, told the News that he found TikTok to be one of the platforms on which brands are best able to easily notice creators and establish partnerships.

“[A TikTok ban] can definitely impact people, especially if it’s one of their primary forms of income, or if they’ve transitioned to being a full-time content creator,” said Phanhthourath.

On the other hand, Clarissa Tan ’26, who posts travel-related content, told the News that the TikTok ban does not directly affect her as the majority of her income from content creation comes from an app called Lemon8, a wellness and lifestyle app. 

However, because the platform is owned by ByteDance, the same company that owns TikTok, she found Lemon8 to be temporarily banned over the weekend too.

“This uncertainty [over TikTok] does make me concerned because I need income as a full-time student to pay for my travels and college, and I was making $900 a month on Lemon8,” said Tan. “I do have three other student jobs, but Lemon8 definitely paid me the most, so that’s a tough one to lose out on.”

In addition to losing a source of income and the opportunity for advancement in the entertainment industry, Yale influencers may also lose a special part of their time at Yale.

Arnow, who posts a video every day, said that the saddest part about the TikTok ban was going through and downloading videos from throughout his time at Yale. He found every TikTok to be “kind of like a diary entry” that reminds him about what he was doing that day or what outfit he was wearing and why.

“I’ve had [TikTok] for five years. I was 15, and I’m 20 now, so it’s sad in that respect of losing memories almost,” said Arnow. “And it’s fun because, especially since it’s Yale, I like to incorporate friends into TikToks. And so, it’s cool to see how we’ve grown so much, how we’ve gotten so much closer.”

Congress voted in favor of the ban on TikTok nine months ago.