“I can’t believe I’m making an Instagram reel to complain about this right now because normally when anything happens in the world, I go to TikTok,” the influencer James Charles said in a video late Saturday night.
Mr. Charles, who has 20 million followers on Instagram, was reacting to the notification that users in the United States had received earlier in the evening informing them that the app would be going dark.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution,” the message said. “Please stay tuned!”
“Non-Americans, can you still see American accounts on TikTok or are they gone?” Tineke Younger, a chef and content creator, asked her followers on X.
Her videos, multiple users replied, were still visible.
In the days before the ban took effect, even after the Supreme Court’s ruling that the service must be sold to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States, many TikTok users remained hopeful that the app would be spared and that U.S. users would be able to continue using it without interruption. Others tried to cope with humor, like TikTok creators who threw funerals — complete with makeshift caskets and eulogies — for the platform.
But by Saturday night in the United States, it was clear those hopes were, at least briefly, in vain. Alix Earle, a popular TikTok creator, headed straight over to Instagram to livestream with her followers and process the news. Ms. Earle joked she had tried to learn Mandarin to use RedNote, a Chinese video app that has become popular in recent days. She had already been banned from that app, she said.
Some relief came on Sunday when TikTok announced that, after assurances from President-elect Donald J. Trump, it was working to restore the service to U.S. users.
Before that announcement, TikTok users had been looking for a workaround to the ban in the form of virtual private networks, or V.P.N.s, which encrypt a user’s location. On Sunday, demand for V.P.N.s in the U.S. spiked 827 percent, according to Top10VPN, a V.P.N. review site.
“It was just so disappointing,” Casey Lewis, who writes the youth culture newsletter After School, said of using Instagram Reels as a potential TikTok substitute after the ban went into effect. “TikTok, the algorithm, just knows me and gives me everything I want to see.”
The top free apps in Apple’s app store after the ban were both TikTok competitors: Red Note and Likee, a short-form video app with its own “For You” page. The third most downloaded app was a V.P.N. service.
Among those voicing support for TikTok after the ban was Elon Musk, a close ally of Mr. Trump, who said he was against the ban even as he noted it would still be a direct competitor to his own social media site, X.
“The current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced,” Mr. Musk wrote. “Something needs to change.”
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky went as far as joining TikTok as a form of “civil disobedience” on Saturday, urging the app’s fans to take action in a video posted to the platform and to X.
“To the 170 million Americans who use TikTok: Don’t give up, don’t give in,” Mr. Paul said. “Resist.”
The calls for TikTok’s return, from its users and from various politicians, appear to have been answered.
TikTok posted on X on Sunday that it was “in the process of restoring service” after a pledge from Mr. Trump that no one would face financial penalties for hosting TikTok as the service tried to find a way to comply with the law.
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive,” the statement said.
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