The TikTok timeout, 1984, Handmaids Tale, Dystopian Nightmare loading….

Here we go AGAIN?…

Apparently we didn’t learn from last time. Or apparently this country is way more fucked up than I realized. But we have our priorities in order right?: Renaming a body of water, removing information about reproductive rights from the internet, deportation and censorship on social media platforms.

It’s almost like we’re going backwards in time? Oh wait…

There’s no coincidence that the books I referenced in the title of this post have been removed from summer reading lists and are slowly being banned from schools, libraries and other places of public access. (There are plenty more books being banned; read about why and what is being targeted here, here and here).

I read 1984 by George Orwell, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, when I was in high school. I highly recommend reading these books to anyone who wants a look at what could very well be happening in this country right now. The themes and plots have an unfortunate and eerie symmetry to our current state.

Other countries are scared of us and FOR us. I’ve seen plenty of content from people all around the world recently discussing the exaggerated salute given by the man who designed the ugliest car in the world at Orange Man’s inauguration and I don’t even know why it’s a debate of what that was signifying.

But before the inauguration, we were put in timeout.

What was now an obvious propaganda tactic to elicit support for the giant talking orange, on January 18th 2025 around 10:30PM EST., TikTok was banned in the United States. (About an hour and a half earlier than the ban was supposed to be put in place).

I was unable to screenshot the following personal instances..but right after TikTok was banned I got a notification on my phone trying to update “meta applications” I did nothing but exit the notification. I then received notifications that all my meta accounts were linked. This is strange as I never clicked anything that should have linked my accounts. I have yet to figure out what “other” meta accounts could be linked other than my facebook and instagram. TikTok in the works to become a meta app? Many are suspecting and with this strange experience I am convinced too.

About 15 hours later we rejoiced. TikTok had been “saved.”

Tiktok let us know to thank the cheddar blast buffoon as he made it possible for us to have the app back… (and the reason everything was banned in the first place but we’ll still just gloss over that)…and also gave us brief warning they were working on some things to make our experience better. Yeah…okay…sure.

There were several red flags to the reboot that I will argue point towards the inevitable censorship of this app (and many others in the United States.)

The first 24 hours I saw no live streams, multiple removed sounds and tags, as well as creators having to reupload videos that had been removed for reasoning that did not align with the content of the video. Most videos I saw that were removed (as I had them saved) and yet to be reuploaded would be deemed politically liberal or left wing, revolving around women’s, and about LGBTQ+ rights.

This is just the beginning. Mass deportations are starting this week. Many of those who will be targeted by ICE are taxpayers to this country. Regardless of status; the deportation process in this country is foul. Barbarian at best, cruelty at its middle, and trafficking and death at its worst. You don’t believe me? Wake up and smell the shit on your shoes. And if you can’t smell it, I guess you eat it for breakfast too.

We’re about to be in a war for our freedom in a “free country.” This decade will be an entire section in future history books…how accurate this era will be depicted is honestly up to us.

If history is bound to repeat itself then so is revolution. We are in the age of Aquarius. An age of reckoning. Mothers, fathers, daughters and sons fought for our rights that are about to be taken from under our noses. Do not let the children of the coming generation be left to clean up the mess of bigotry and hate once again.

We all have power we just have to know how to use it. We all have power but true power always is in numbers. We have to stand together to make it better for EVERYONE who lives here.

Rebel on.

Lysistrata