• TikTok is veering toward a US shutdown after the Supreme Court upheld a divest-or-ban law.
• The app is set to leave app stores and may go dark on Sunday if its owner, ByteDance, doesn't divest.
• TikTok creators and their teams are tired from months of uncertainty, but cautiously hopeful too.

TikTok is in trouble.

The company is set to disappear from US app stores on Sunday due to a divest-or-ban law that requires its owner, ByteDance, to sell the app by January 19 or essentially cease operating in the country. TikTok may stop showing content in the US and "go dark" over the weekend.

For TikTok creators and their teams, ongoing uncertainty around the app's US future has sparked frustration and fatigue.

"We've been dealing with this for months," said Julian Andrews, founder of talent management firm Talentiish. "I just sort of want the situation to be over so we know how to move on."

Some in the talent community are cautiously optimistic that a solution will emerge to save TikTok. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to try to rescue the app once in office, though his options could be limited.

"So many of us are still holding out hope that it will work out," Barbara Jones, CEO of Outshine Talent, said.

Others aren't holding their breath and are instead focusing on established alternatives, such as Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, as well as challenger apps like Clapper, Flip, and RedNote.

"Many of our clients are making accounts on RedNote and Flip as well as downloading their data from the TikTok app," Jones said. "They are trying to be as prepared as possible."

Creators may be hesitant to commit to new platforms, however, when the advertising dollars are much more reliable on major players like Instagram.

Instagram is, for the most part, the platform of choice among those Business Insider spoke to who are pivoting from TikTok.

Fallen Media, which runs TikTok shows like "What's Poppin? With Davis!" said it will be heavily investing in Instagram reels, for example.

"I have suggested to my clients not to focus on any new platforms and focus on the tried and true," Andrews at Talentiish said.

In the meantime, there's still no clear answer as to what happens this weekend.

"The truth is we don't really know what's going to happen on Sunday, which I think is the crazy part," said Fallen Media CEO Sol Betesh.

Creators are exhausted and devastated to say goodbye to TikTok

As news stories around a TikTok ban swing between good news and legal defeats, some creators have sunk into despair. The Supreme Court loss on Friday hit particularly hard for those whose businesses depend on the app.

"The ruling is truly devastating for me as someone who built their platform starting on TikTok," said Sofia Bella, a TikTok creator with 4.8 million followers. "Losing the majority of my audience is a difficult reality to face, and while I'm doing everything I can to prepare, it's hard not to feel like I'm starting over."

Andrews said the job of talent manager has teetered between acting as a therapist and strategist for the creators they manage.

Some creators are actively fighting against a TikTok ban, including Vitus Spehar, who runs the news account @underthedesknews. Spehar has been covering breaking news and political developments around the divestment. They said Americans should call their senators and other representatives to demand action against the law.

Still, other creators who have experienced burnout from TikTok are welcoming a possible shift if the app goes down.

"Generally, the tone from most internet creators I've spoken to has been entirely apathetic," said Tati Bruening, a TikTok creator with 2.4 million followers. "The pacing of content creation for TikTok was a recipe for burnout."

Building a strategy for doomsday

Even as the creator economy braces for the loss of its favorite corner of the internet, this moment is a lesson for many.

"Stop building brands on social media that other people own," Jennifer Powell, a talent manager who works with creators like Tezza and Ty French, told BI. "This can and will happen again. Start your website, get newsletters going, blogs, use affiliates, turn it into a brand, and own your own little place on the web."

A TikTok ban could also be a gold rush for social media startups as they race to fill the void.

"There's never been a better time to start a creation or curation company," said Em Herrera, a former investor at Slow Ventures who recently founded a firm called Creator Venture Accelerator.

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• Alex Ruani used to overeat snacks that weren't nutritious.
• A few changes transformed her relationship with snacking.
• She started eating her meals at the same time each day and getting more sleep.

A nutrition scientist who was hooked on snacks like cookies and potato chips shared how she transformed her relationship with snacking.

Alex Ruani, a diet misinformation researcher at University College London, used to reach for high-fat, high-sugar foods like white chocolate and sugary iced coffees throughout the day.

Once she started, she struggled to stop eating. "Those of us who have this tendency to snack, we cannot stop until the entire pack is empty," she told Business Insider.

Now, Ruani said her relationship with snacks is healthier. She rarely snacks anymore, but when she does feel hungry between meals, she chooses something nutritious.

"It's a great opportunity for you to include more nutrients in your diet, more polyphenols, more fiber," she said.

"Snacking is not a bad thing, just keep an eye on what those snacks are," she said.

Ruani shared the three changes she made that helped.

Redesign your food environment

The first thing Ruani did was remove foods she wanted to stop snacking on. That way, she didn't have to rely on just willpower to resist the temptation.

"Redesign your food environments so they serve you, and they're not against you," she said.

In practice, this meant not buying chocolates and chips, removing them from the suggested items on her online grocery order, and avoiding the tempting aisle at the grocery store.

"I cannot be trusted near those things, so I just let my environment make those decisions for me," Ruani said.

Instead, she kept nutritious snacks such as fruit and nuts in her fridge or on her desk at work.

You're much more likely to eat what's immediately accessible to you, she said.

In a 2015 study published in the journal Society for Public Health Education, 710 households were asked which foods, if any, were displayed on their kitchen counters and what the occupants' heights and weights were. Researchers found that having fruit on display was associated with a lower BMI. While counters that displayed candy, cereal, or soft drinks were associated with higher BMIs.

Eat your meals around the same time every day

In the early part of her career, Ruani would eat at random times. "Some days at 8 p.m., some days at seven, some days at midnight, it was a disaster," she said. Once she started eating at more consistent times, she found that her cravings started to naturally subside.

Whether you stick to three meals a day or another setup, eating them at the same time each day can help regulate your hunger hormones, Ruani said. This, in turn, means you are less likely to crave food between meals.

There's a sector of nutrition science that studies how the circadian rhythm, which is our sleep and awake cycles, appetite signals, and food consumption are all correlated, she said. The body loves routine and predictability, she said, so when these elements are synchronized, it can run more efficiently.

"Let's say your dinner on Monday is at 9 p.m., then on Tuesday at 8 p.m., and then on Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. Your body is a little bit more confused, and that can also influence your hunger hormones, their production, and how they signal satiation to the brain," she said.

Get enough sleep

Going to sleep and waking up around the same time every day also helped Ruani to stop overeating.

"Consistent sleeping hours across the week have been associated with better hunger regulation," she said.

Research suggests that getting poor quality or not enough sleep leads people to consume more calories, mainly from snacking, especially in foods rich in fat and carbs, according to a 2022 review published in Nutrients.

A 2022 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that when a group of overweight adults slept 8.5 hours a night instead of their usual 6.5 hours, they ate an average of 270 fewer calories a day than a control group.

• Destanee Aiava wore vintage tennis outfits she found on eBay at the 2025 Australian Open.
• She sported replicas of dresses worn by past champions, including Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic.
• Aiava made it through three rounds of qualifying to earn a spot in the main draw.

If you've been following Week 1 of the 2025 Australian Open, you've probably noticed a lot of the same outfits.

Adidas has its players kitted out in bold red for the first major of the year, known as "The Happy Slam." Many of Nike's athletes, including Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz, are wearing green and yellow.

It's not uncommon for tennis players to wear the same kit throughout the entirety of a tournament due to their endorsement contracts.

But for qualifier Destanee Aiava, who doesn't have a clothing sponsor, her on-court styles were completely up to her — and she chose to pay homage to past champions Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, and Ana Ivanovic by wearing their iconic looks from the late 2000s and early 2010s.

She couldn't get the gear through Nike or Adidas, though. Aiava bought the dresses secondhand online.

"I've found them on eBay — for double the price that they were originally for," she told tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg. "But yeah, I just like looking on Depop, Facebook Marketplace, eBay to find the old, vintage outfits that I loved when I was little."

Ranked just inside the top 200, the 24-year-old Australian-Samoan had to battle through three rounds of qualifying rounds to earn a slot in the main draw.

For her first match in qualies, she wore a light pink Nike dress that Sharapova sported at the 2012 US Open.

For round two, Aiava got her hands on a pink and purple number worn by Ana Ivanovic at the 2010 US Open.

She wore a different pink Ivanovic dress for her third-round match, which propelled her into the main draw of the AO.

Heading into the first round of the main draw match, BBC asked Aiava about her outfit choice. She said she'd found one of Facebook: "I might go pick that up. It's only $35, which is a steal."

BBC didn't confirm whether she purchased it. Aiava walked on court in a sky blue Adidas dress previously worn by Caroline Wozniacki at the 2013 US Open, and earned her very first Grand Slam main-draw win. Advancing to the round of 64 earned her $200,000 AUD ($124,280 USD).

"It means that I can bring someone to travel with this year, and I can afford to actually go to all the tournaments that I want to," Aiava said after the comeback victory. "I struggle traveling on my own. The fact that I get to bring my fiancé with me and hopefully one of my family members to the big ones, it makes a world of a difference."

In what would be her last match at the 2025 Australian Open, Aiava wore another Sharapova number while battling American Danielle Collins, who eventually prevailed in three sets.

"It was actually from one of the girls that I used to play tennis with when I was little," Aiava told 9News of the fit. "She reached out and offered to lend me a dress and I actually ran out of options as well, so I'm so lucky."

Aiava told BBC that she's "hoping to get a sponsor." But in the meantime, "I'm loving picking whatever I want to wear and buying whatever I want."

She told 9News that if she continues the tradition, she'd like to eventually bring back a Serena Williams piece. However, it was out of her budget for this event: "They are quite hard to find and quite expensive."

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