The TikToks that changed the internet

Even if the app gets banned, its impact will live on

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

Humbly not including my millennial pause video in this (I don’t want to get yelled at) — Kate

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I can’t pretend to have any insight about the TikTok ban—people I trust have both said it definitely is and definitely isn’t going to happen. I am of course hoping for the latter, but have also spent the holidays using the app with a heightened awareness of the fact that everything I was consuming might soon be gone. Well, sort of.

The novelty of TikTok’s cultural impact isn’t just the attention it’s claimed in the social media landscape, but also how it has forced the entire social media landscape to adopt its culture, too. Its early years were plagued by short-form video copycats that failed to become real competitors, so these days any preexisting app has just become overflow for its influence.

TikTok will leave behind an entirely changed ecosystem—from the content we create, to how we consume it, to how it translates into our real lives. Even if you don’t use TikTok, you still unavoidably experience some of its most influential contributions, which can and will live on even if the app itself ceases to be. I unpacked them below, and collected the individual videos I feel defined what TikTok came to be.