LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
"I've heard that, recently, I've been on the [TikTok] 'For You' page, so I thought I would get on here myself." Within nine hours, the eight-second video accumulated 7 million views, 1.7 million likes, and 67,300 comments. Mere days after becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris made her own personal account on the controversial social media app.
Harris' actions underline how TikTok has become a crucial platform for those with a message. Yet news of the U.S. government's effort to ban the social media app has been hard to ignore. Legislators fear TikTok provides the Chinese government access to user data, and on April 24, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would ban the app in the U.S. should TikTok's China-based owner, ByteDance, fail to sell its stake by Jan. 19, 2025.
TikTok started as three separate apps, which eventually merged in 2018. In its early days, the app gave users a way to make short lip-sync videos, but it soon became a platform where music artists could launch songs and become viral success stories. The app reached new heights of popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since become a go-to platform for marketers to reach younger audiences.
It has also become a lifeline for many creators who have parlayed their personalities and interests into careers. "I know people have a negative connotation to influencers, and I totally understand that, but there's some of us [who] kind of fell into this by mistake, and this is our job now," Lauren-Ashley Beck told NPR. With more than 530,000 followers, Beck has dubbed herself the Queen of Stream. Money from the app has helped her pay down student loans and even buy a Ford Bronco—before the signed ban, that is.
A TikTok ban would negatively disrupt the creator economy, abruptly ending the careers of creators who profit from posting on the app. While emerging TikTokers have expressed concern, stars like Charli D'Amelio and Zach King, whose fame has expanded past the app, have maintained an open mind. "There always will be that hot new app, and we'll be a part of it if we can. Because it's great to be where the current conversations are happening," King, who experimented with both YouTube and Vine before joining TikTok, told Newsweek.
Before the ban goes into effect, Collabstr looked into the app's current most-followed accounts by analyzing TikTok following data on Social Blade to rank the users with the most influence based on their following size as of mid-July 2024. Note that ranking constantly changes, reflecting the fast pace of social media. Public descriptions of creators' nationalities and residences were used to focus the list on U.S.-based users, which, of course, excludes the app's current most-followed user, Senegalese Italian creator Khaby Lame. Many of these accounts will probably be familiar names even outside the platform, but the highest-ranking ones continue to be users who have honed their style in the wilds of social media.
Estimated total followers: 58,300,000
Videos posted: 209
Selena Gomez initially rose to fame as the star of Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place" in the mid-aughts before becoming a global sensation as a pop star; a businesswoman with her successful makeup line, Rare Beauty; and an actress on the Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated Hulu series "Only Murders in the Building." Her TikToks are mostly videos of her using her Rare Beauty products, with occasional behind-the-scenes "Only Murders" posts and tidbits about her personal life.
Estimated total followers: 59,900,000
Videos posted: 958
Multiplatinum singer-songwriter Jason Derulo has long since established himself as a mainstay in pop culture, with songs like "Wiggle" and "Talk Dirty" among the many singles that have contributed to sales of more than 250 million singles. Music is featured on Derulo's TikTok, but he spends more time entertaining followers by doing viral dances and sharing scenes from his daily life with flashy edits and a sense of humor.
Estimated total followers: 65,500,000
Videos posted: 55
Billie Eilish rose to fame as a young singer-songwriter in 2015, when she uploaded her song "Ocean Eyes" to SoundCloud at just 13 years old. The song went on to become a hit, and Eilish has since released the chart-topper "Bad Guy" and earworms like "Happier Than Ever" and "Birds of a Feather" and earned two Academy Awards for the titular theme song for the James Bond film "No Time to Die" and the ballad "What Was I Made For?" from 2023's "Barbie." Eilish's TikTok often features her own music but done so with her own personality and self-filmed quality.
Estimated total followers: 74,600,000
Videos posted: 268
While Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson began his career in entertainment as a wrestler with the WWE, he's gone on to be a major player in Hollywood with box-office hits like "Moana" and a few films from the "Fast & Furious" franchise. On TikTok, Johnson promotes films, posts comedic meme-style videos, and occasionally shares scenes from his daily life as a father, actor, and businessman.
Estimated total followers: 75,100,000
Videos posted: 275
Will Smith, now an Academy Award-winning leading man in Hollywood, started his career as a rapper with the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince before becoming a sensation as the lead on the sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Smith uses his TikTok as a platform for well-edited promotional behind-the-scenes footage and updates on his career.
Estimated total followers: 82,200,000
Videos posted: 503
Zach King initially built a following the short-lived, short-form video app Vine before growing his following on TikTok. He is primarily a filmmaker who uses editing to create whimsical, magical-seeming trick-of-the-eye videos.
Estimated total followers: 88,800,000
Videos posted: 1,776
Addison Rae was a pioneer TikTok influencer, rising to fame with videos of her performing popular dance trends. Since then, she's pivoted to acting, with a starring role in 2021's "He's All That," and singing, with songs like "Obsessed." Her content now showcases more of her "it girl," friend-of-celebs lifestyle and brand collaborations and less on trends and dancing.
Estimated total followers: 94,200,000
Videos posted: 724
Bella Poarch was a Navy veteran when she went viral as a TikTok star who posted primarily front-facing lip-sync videos. Since then, she's been releasing pop music and her TikTok reflects this new era of her career.
Estimated total followers: 101,300,000
Videos posted: 356
MrBeast achieved success first as a YouTuber, posting himself performing bizarre challenges, playing video games, and performing shock-baiting stunts like giving out large sums of money to random people before becoming equally successful on TikTok. While most of his content still is mainly released on YouTube, his TikTok features clips of all his stunts.
Estimated total followers: 155,500,000
Videos posted: 2,700
Like Addison Rae, Charli D'Amelio was an influencer who emerged to success during the early days of TikTok. She began on the app performing popular dance trends and makeup tutorials and also shared the spotlight on her Hulu reality show, "The D'Amelio Show," with her older sister, Dixie D'Amelio. These days, Charli still performs some dance trends on her TikTok, along with lip-sync trends, and sponsored posts.
Story editing by Carren Jao. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.
This story originally appeared on Collabstr and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.