I must be getting old. I can't wrap my head around why anyone would really care if TikTok disappeared. There'd be a new source of brainrot videos by the end of the week.
Keep in mind most popular tiktok videos are posted by people who post a lot of popular tiktok videos. So they're financially and emotionally invested in the platform. Even if XYZ Shorts is an essentially equivalent platform, the big scramble move-over is a great way to lose all your viewers.
It's an important provider of community for many people. For many it is their primary community and where they do the majority of their socializing, so the loss of the platform means the loss of their friendships and connections, as well as the loss of their main source of entertainment. Many of these people are also getting the majority of the information from the outside world from there as well, so their world goes dark in a sense. Quite understandable why they would be upset.
