Just a few years ago, Keith Lee was a professional mixed martial arts fighter, delivering food and creating social media videos to relieve his social anxiety.
However, on Thursday night, Lee found himself under the glare of bright lights as he walked the red carpet outside the historic Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard about to be recognized as TikTok’s “Creator of the Year.”
He and hundreds of other creators gathered for TikTok’s first American awards ceremony. And they had good reason to celebrate.
Just a few minutes before the opening show began, they received news of a deal that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States through a joint venture controlled by a group of American investors that includes tech giant Oracle Corp. TikTok confirmed the deal in an email to employees and said it was expected to close next month.
“[TikTok] “It’s the best way to reach people, and I know a lot of people who rely on it to support their families,” said Lee, who has 17.3 million followers of his informal restaurant reviews. “For me, it’s my career now, so I can’t imagine not having it.”
Content creators – many of whom reside in Southern California – rely on the app as their main source of income, while companies and brands turn to the platform and its influencers to promote their products.
Many were concerned that the app might disappear after the Supreme Court upheld a ban on the platform due to national security concerns raised by President Trump in 2020.
Trump then allowed TikTok, which has offices in Culver City, to continue operating in the US, and in September he signed an executive order outlining the new joint venture.
Comedy creator Adam W, who attended the awards ceremony, described the news as a “game changer.”
With 22.6 million followers on TikTok, Adam W. has amassed a large audience for his videos parodying pop culture trends.
In one, he was a contestant on “The Bachelor,” surrounded by a group of look-alike blonde models; In another photo, he drinks a matcha latte with Will Smith.
“That’s good to hear,” Adam W. said of the new ownership. “A lot of people are able to work on TikTok. There are a lot of people who go on TikTok to get away from their reality and it means a lot to them, so I think it’s really helpful to have.”
TikTok said the awards ceremony aims to celebrate the influential people who helped turn the app into a global force that shaped the way young Americans shop and consume entertainment.
“You represent a truly global community of over a billion people on TikTok,” Kim Farrell, the app’s global head of creative, said at the event. “This year you showed the world how influential content creators are.”
Despite the historic moment, the awards ceremony was not without technical errors. Screens that were intended to show clips of contestants and visuals during speeches were dark throughout the night.
The two-hour show, in which creators took home awards in several categories, included a range of parodies that parodied cultural moments on TikTok, from Jools Lebron telling the audience to “be sober,” to K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Rei Ami firing a Labubu cannon at the audience.
“TikTok has definitely changed my life,” Lee said in an interview. “I’ve always planned my life around food, so I’m lucky to turn on the camera and do the same thing.”
Max Wellens, an analyst at EMarketer, said TikTok’s new ownership should allow the app to rebound after it lost market share amid uncertainty about its future.
“Last year, because a lot of advertisers weren’t really sure if TikTok was going to stay or go, it slowed down the momentum that we saw on that platform,” Wellens said. “We think going forward it’s just going to end up being a hiccup.”