The platform that made your career is shutting down? These Vine stars have been there.

When Twitter announced in 2016 that it planned to shut down Vine, the news cleaved through the creator community. Thousands of creators had started their careers by making six-second videos, and suddenly the platform where their content, their peers, and their audience resided was no longer going to exist.

But Vine’s shuttering was a strange thing. Yes, it was an undeniable loss for creators. But, at the same time, it sparked a new wave of content creation. Instead of being discouraged from pursuing content further, some creators (like Liza Koshy and David Dobrik, to name a couple of the most prominent) moved to YouTube and kept making videos.

Now, our community is potentially on the edge of another platform loss. TikTok parent ByteDance has until Jan. 19 to divest ownership of TikTok’s operations in the U.S. It’s refused so far, and the Supreme Court is currently hearing its case for why it shouldn’t be banned. But unless the court stays the ban law or TikTok finds a new owner (like MrBeast?), its app will soon become inaccessible to all 170 million U.S.-based users.

That user base includes millions of creators, many of whom found new careers on TikTok during COVID lockdowns. TikTok is where they post content, interact with their followers, and (perhaps most importantly) make the majority of their income.

So, if TikTok gets banned, WTF are they supposed to do?

Well, luckily, the Washington Post sat down with some Vine veterans and asked what they did to move forward when Vine shut down. And they have some pretty good advice.

Own your content, trust your audience, and go with the flow

From singer/songwriter Ricky Montgomery, who started on MySpace and went on to gather 200,000 followers on Vine: Save your content.

“Download every video you have, even the ones in your drafts,” he said. He also said creators should try crossposting to other platforms: “If it worked once, odds are it’ll work again.”

Competitor platforms like Triller are trying to capitalize on TikTok’s potential closure by giving creators ways to upload their videos directly from TikTok to its platform, but we suggest ensuring everything is saved locally, to your own private drive. (Even if TikTok wasn’t closing, we’d suggest this; things can always happen to platforms, and your content is only 100% safe with you.)

From Sarah Schauer, who had over 850,000 followers on Vine when it closed: Focus on the process of making content. If you did it once, you can do it again.

“It felt like this social media would last forever,” she said about Vine. “I lost my friends on there. All my hard work was gone. It was incredibly sad.”

Then, in 2019, she joined TikTok, and built a new audience of 2.1 million people (some of whom, she told the Post, remember her from her Vine days). Now, she’s trying to ban-proof her content by making a podcast, a Substack, and trying out trending Chinese app RedNote. Ultimately, her goal is to enjoy making content, and trusting that people will find her based on shared interests.

“Instead of chasing lightning strikes, focus on creating moments of thunder. Give your audience space to breathe and connect,” she said. “Fall in love with the process of making content, not just the rush of going viral.”

And from Malik Taylor, who went viral just a week before Vine shut down and now has 230,000 followers on TikTok: Keep an eye on where traffic is flowing.

This isn’t the case of one creator losing their platform and having to establish somewhere else alone. If TikTok shuts down, there will be a mass exodus, and people—creators and viewers alike—will be looking for fellow “TikTok refugees” on other platforms.

“[L]earn how to pivot and figure out the social language on the next platform,” he told the Post.

Another creator, YouTuber/singer Twaimz, agreed. “You have to look at what works for other people and make it your own. See what is popping to pop.”

The Post also spoke to several more creators; we recommend TikTokers check out its full piece if they’re looking for a little reassurance ahead of a potential ban.