The US has seen several law changes recently-including a ban on the popular social media TikTok. The ban was announced on January 18, 2025, and it was stated that the US wanted to protect citizen data from the Chinese parent company ByteDance. However, many people have called that hogwash but that’s not what we’re getting into today.
TikTok has become the top platform to promote music in the last few years, especially in the US which is the largest music market. The impact is so outrageous that artists now render their music to be catchy enough to trend on the app. So let’s look into how the US TikTok ban impacts music trends.
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Overview Of The Brief US TikTok Ban
The ban was announced officially on January 18 and came into effect nationwide on January 19. People from all across the US expressed their frustrations at no longer being able to access the platform.
A large number of people also moved to another Chinese app called “Red Notebook” in a hilarious defiance of the government’s statement.
The ban lasted only 14 hours before the service was restored gradually to several regions and people rushed online to laugh off how they had panicked over nothing.
Reactions From the Music Industry
One of the most notable responses to this whole ordeal was from Halsey, who made a post saying “Tiktok is dead and I’m very sorry to you all but also lowkey does this mean we got to have the music industry back or nah?”
Halsey wasn’t the only one who expressed such thoughts on the ban. Since rising in popularity, TikTok has become a major factor in music trends, relevancy, and chart numbers.
Any new artist or old must make “TikTok friendly” content for their music to be relevant to the masses. This abrupt change in music promotion has frustrated artists and listeners over the years.
Why is TikTok Such a Big Deal in Music Promotions?
Well, the strength is in numbers and there are over 170 million TikTok users in the USA alone. Most of these users are in their teens or early youth which makes them the target consumers for music, movies, and other media. These are the youths who are breathing life into the fandoms and creating content to promote their favorite artists.
And that’s just the goldmine! A 20-second video on TikTok does a lot more to promote a new song than 20 billboards you’ll see of the artist anywhere. So the music industry hopped onto this Gen Z filled platform and created dance challenges, tags, and catchy audios to promote their artists and make the music pull numbers. There is, of course, a huge downside to all of this fast-paced climb to the top.
TikTok Ban and Its Impact on Music Trends
As TikTok virality plays such a huge role in music being relevant and gathering a large audience, many artists can’t express individuality through their art anymore. Very popular tracks may also play everywhere for just about two weeks before they’re shoved aside and replaced. The TikTok virality and relevancy is fleeting.
A ban on the app will have the masses moving to other socials such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat to share their music-related interests. But none of these apps are focused on music trends and dance challenges.
Losing TikTok will impact new and upcoming artists the most as newcomers usually upload their content and dance challenges to the platform in the hopes of it catching on and bringing them some attention. This has worked wonders for some artists as the high frequency of audio being used on TikTok guarantees the original song to rise on regional and global charts.
Some artists who benefited from TikTok virality are:
i) Doja Cat
ii) Addison Rae
iii) Walker Hayes
iv) Nessa Barett
v) Loren Gray
What if TikTok Gets Permanently Banned?
The US had planned to ban Chinese apps in the country for a long time. TikTok may likely be banned permanently at some point. This may cause barriers for new artists and content creators to reach a wider audience. But as an upside, it may bring back authenticity in music and artists will get to explore their art without worrying about dance trends and viral challenges.
In case the popular platform is lost, here are other social networks to promote music:
- Instagram- 166 million users in the US
- YouTube Shorts- 238 million users in the US
- Snapchat- 106 million users in the US
- Threads- 30 million users in the US
- Twitch- 36 million users in the US
Final Words
It’s clear that TikTok’s virality works great to introduce new artists to a wider audience. However, the constant pressure of creating music to match current trends and popular tunes also destroys the individuality and authenticity of art. The short video format has reduced people’s attention spans to a point where music may no longer resonate with the masses at a deeper level.
Perhaps a ban on fast-consumed media and a shift from popular trends to long-planned music releases will encourage listeners to scrutinize music for the sake of art.