Before die-hard Vine fans say goodbye, they wanted to take a trip down memory lane. The short-form video app, which shut down in 2017, created many viral moments ("They're roommate ...") and propelled many internet creators into the mainstream. It was unlike anything else on the internet at the time: sometimes you can still see the refrain of "RIP Vine" on social media. But for the most part, every Individuals have moved on, with Vine's two biggest stars, Logan Paul and Shawn Mendes, still very famous.

Vine was immediately on my mind this morning when the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the United States. After seeing this news, I checked TikTok. The app is a hotbed of nostalgia, with many users retweeting their earliest videos from just a few years ago. The ruling is the latest twist in the ongoing saga surrounding the app's fate: TikTok has been dogged by questions about its ties to the Chinese government for more than four years. Barring some last-minute intervention (which is still possible!), the app will likely be shut down on Sunday. (After the Supreme Court ruling, Joe Biden’s administration announced it would leave enforcement of the ban to Donald Trump.)

For an app, there's a lot of hype and suspense, but it's not really all that important. There is no denying that TikTok has had a significant impact on American culture. Its tacky trend, dubbed "coastal grandma," influences the stores Americans shop and the products they buy. Why was the Stanley Cup suddenly everywhere last year? Blame it on TikTok. Artists are encouraged to create music that may spark dance challenges on the app. This is the part where TikTok excels: Its algorithm delivers hyper-personalized content to users, boosting engagement.

But while Americans may be listening to music or buying TikTok-related apparel, most of them aren't scrolling through the app itself. A Pew Research Center survey released last year showed that only one-third of American adults said they had ever used TikTok. YouTube reaches more Americans, with 83% of adults saying they use the platform. Although TikTok is often referred to as a Gen Z app, a larger proportion of users aged 18 to 29 use Snapchat and Instagram.

In a way, TikTok users seem to be at peace knowing they have other options. Few people flocked to Capitol Hill to protest the ban. For the most part, celebrities haven't spoken publicly about how dire the risk of a TikTok blackout is. Online, people expressed their frustration with wry humor: tearful farewells to supposed "Chinese spies" who had been observing their TikTok behavior for years. Millions of people have downloaded another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu, whose English name translates to "Little Red Book."

TikTok will become the first major social media platform to face an outright ban in the United States, but its demise is not that unfamiliar. Even beyond Vine, Millennials and Generation X users spent their youth on platforms that one day either disappeared or became unrecognizable. Tumblr has gone through a series of changes that have left the once-thriving blogging platform in trouble. Users eventually found new homes elsewhere: Facebook overtook MySpace but ceded its cultural cache to Instagram, while TikTok itself absorbed Musical.ly. This is part of a larger migration cycle that has been defining social media. The same may be true for TikTok. Many social platforms have copied the app and have similar algorithmic feeds that keep you scrolling. As Hana Kiros wrote yesterday, "The app may be banned in the United States, but we still live in a TikTok world."

That's not to say the TikTok ban won't be felt. Influencers with large TikTok followings will have to compete for attention on other platforms that may have different audiences and success mechanisms. Small business owners in particular could suffer significant losses. A restaurant is only one viral video away from waking up to a line on the street, and one hashtag away from a designer selling a new product. The app's benefits for businesses are boosted by TikTok Shop, which allows users to purchase items directly from its animated videos. Those who go all-in on TikTok will definitely take a hit when trying to build a presence elsewhere online, but they'll likely recover.

When I opened TikTok this morning, many of the videos retweeted by users bidding farewell to the app featured trends from the early days of the pandemic that I barely remember: morning routines set to the soundtrack of Powfu’s 2020 song “Death Bed,” and over-the-top Lip-sync animation. These videos prove how fast the internet is growing. In a few years, TikTok's most defining moments, like Vine's catchphrase and Tumblr's protagonist, will be largely forgotten.