TikTok has its eye on world domination. After hitting critical mass in China (known as Douyin/抖音, locally), it made its way into Southeast Asia. Now it wants the West. But there’s a problem.

People in the West are reacting to TikTok, and not in a good way.

It’s become a meme.

If you’re a young internet user in the West, you might have noticed ads for TikTok creeping into your content stream in the past several months. You might even be subjected to multiple in-stream ads from TikTok on YouTube while trying to watch something you’re actually interested in.

These ads might not resonate with you at all. You might be scratching your head, saying, “what the hell was that shit?”

TikTok has been leveraging user-generated content from the platform to run programmatic ads across markets to drive installs. One thing they’ve done right: people remember them. They’ve made such an impression, internet users are creating all sorts of content that lampoons them now.

It’s even uniting online communities that look down on each other. The meme-community on Reddit (i.e. r/DankMemes) is known for hating iFunny with a passion. Browse r/DankMemes any day of the week, and you’re bound to see plenty of jokes made at the expense of iFunny. TikTok has united Reddit and iFunny in their mutual hate for TikTok.

9gag, another humor-oriented platform often detested by Redditors, also can’t stand TikTok. Any video content with a TikTok watermark uploaded to 9gag will result in downvotes, hate-comments, and anti-TikTok memes.

Some of the memes are brutal and very un-PC.

Sixth Tone, a China-focused English media publication, put out an article about Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese name) last February, titled “The App That Launched a Thousand Memes.” It was referring to the funny content generated on it in China, as the platform had just hit 60 million users (it currently stands at 263 million users). Little did they know what was coming in the West.

So if you’re finding out about TikTok for the first time in the West, it’s probably from TikTok’s programmatic ads or the memes making fun the platform. Then you might find yourself searching for TikTok on YouTube, and what do you find?

Cringe compilations. Dozens and dozens of cringe compilations. TikTok is even running ads on the cringe compilations, probably inadvertently. It’s cringe-on-cringe and Reddit is getting a kick out of it.

Now any potential TikTok user in the West is being painted a negative picture of the platform. They’re seeing annoying ads, and too many of them. They’re seeing their online peers making fun of it. When they search for it, they find that it’s full of embarrassing videos. But hey, maybe they’ll download it ironically.

This isn’t the only struggle TikTok has seen in the West this year. TikTok is owned by a Chinese tech company called ByteDance. ByteDance acquired the Musical.ly platform in November, 2017. Musical.ly was very popular with the under-18 crowd. It spawned some internet superstars. Really young ones. It also spawned a PR-crisis, as sexual predators were using it to get their rocks off.

Fast-forward to July 2018, a YouTuber named PaymoneyWubby did a video titled, “What kids really do on Musical.ly.” He reviewed a series of videos produced by teen users that seemed a bit too sexually suggestive. The video generated over a million views, then got taken down by YouTube.

It was taken down for copyright violations and his channel was hit with a copyright strike. Allegedly, ByteDance went after the video, using copyright claims, despite its clear utilization of Fair Use. PaymoneyWubby was furious and made a response video to YouTube titled, “YouTube STILL does not care about Fair Use.”

The video garnered a lot of traction on Reddit, outraging users and YouTubers. YouTube then responded and re-instated the video and removed the copyright strike.

PaymoneyWubby followed up with a 3rd video titled, “Cowardly actions of a cowardly group — Update Video.” He called out ByteDance for its actions in targeting his video. He took a jab at YouTube, saying how they only rectified the situation after his story went viral. He revealed that ByteDance’s only claim to copyright violation was that the Musical.ly logo was used in the video. Ironic, as there are a ton of Musical.ly video re-uploads to YouTube that feature the logo, yet get no such consequence.

This all happened right after ByteDance had merged Musical.ly into the TikTok app in August, 2018. The sheer timing of it all had PaymoneyWubby trashing ByteDance, Musical.ly, TikTok, and YouTube in his 3rd video, further staining TikTok’s reputation to youth in the West.

It’s gonna be tough to recover from this. Youth in the West are making up their minds about TikTok already. The memes are in full-effect.

Back in June, you might have heard that TikTok was “taking over the world.” It looked that way, from its rapid growth in Southeast Asia.

It was even called “the world’s most downloaded app” by the South China Morning Post, referring to its #1 positioning on Google Play and App Store charts in many Southeast Asian countries.

Lots of people still aren’t really sure what it is in the West, but they know they don’t like it. Some YouTubers see it as a shield that’s saving them from an influx of Musical.ly users (after it shut down). Little do they know, the platforms merged.

Browsing the #TikTok hashtag on Twitter and Instagram will show you that youth in the West are acquiring it (as do the cringe compilations on YouTube). But can this last?

It’s being referred to as “the new Vine” or “Vine 2.0” by some. Contrary to the memes that lambast it, some are finding TikTok to be a breathe of fresh air, as the people on it are more “real” than the glitzy fronters of Instagram. The types of creators that are adopting it really reflect the raw comedy-video scene found on Vine 5 years ago.

My prediction? TikTok will brave the storm and throw down more resources in order to hit critical mass in the West. They’ll be collaborating with celebrities. They’ll do TV spots. Hopefully for them, the youth in the West don’t have their minds made up about them just yet.