After a miserable, dopamine-free couple of hours, TikTok returns to U.S.

Easing the crushing sense of ennui that enveloped the United States in the minutes following the self-imposed prohibition of America’s preferred dopamine provider, TikTok is ready to smooth brains again. Following 12 unrelenting hours of pain and misery, TikTok is back, and it’s got a message for the gatekeepers and political elites trying to restrict its users, “Thank you, President Trump, for providing the necessary clarity” that service providers won’t be penalized for hosting TikTok. It’s just TikTok, it’s not like Pornhub (currently banned in 19 states) or something. Among the only times in recent history that President-elect Trump has been accused of “clarity,” ByteDance eagerly awaits working with the new president on a “long-term solution” for exposing Americans to unmitigated conspiracy theories.

“In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service,” the company posted on X. “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”

“It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”

Yesterday, TikTok did what many people should do and logged off for a few hours. The app disappeared from Apple and Google’s app stores as U.S. users were restricted from seeing videos online and in the app. TikTok fell on the sword out of fear that poor, helpless service providers, like Comcast, AT&T, and Version, would be penalized for hosting the site. Nevertheless, President Biden, who is weirdly still president until tomorrow, already announced that he wouldn’t uphold the ban as his administration called the outage a “stunt.” TikTok knows which side their bread is buttered, though, and pushed an away message to users attempting to get their daily fix of women trying to get Costco peaches out of a jar, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now,” Yesterday’s message read. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” Proving that only he alone can fix this and that he’s such a good president he doesn’t even need to be in office to pardon beleaguered apps, Trump saved the app and launched a memecoin before lunch.

Though no studies have been conducted, the TikTok ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld but was never actually enforced, was among the most severe spells of boredom experienced by American citizens since the October 2021 Meta outage, which left people in a listless haze as they were unable to access the latest advertisements on Instagram and Facebook. In this case, TikTokers left to their devices. They learned Mandarin and signed up for a different Chinese-owned dopamine-delivery system, Xiaohongshu, known in the U.S. as RedNote. Thankfully, Americans can cease becoming bilingual effective immediately and return to the sweet embrace of TikTok’s algorithm, soothing their minds with videos of paint being mixed, soap being shaved, and family vloggers turning their children into moneymakers. Thank you, President Trump. We were worried we might have to put our phones down for a second there.