Brandedis a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture.TikTok is fighting for its life in the U.S. over concerns about its parent companys relationship to the government of China. But TikTok has also just enjoyed one of the best branding weeks ever, as its potential demise has been treated as a national emergency.That sounds like hyperbole, but as youve no doubt heard, the president of the United States has literally intervened to pluck the popular video platform from its deathbedfor now, at least. Protecting this vital component of the internets attention-suck and dubious-trend infrastructure might not seem like a top government, or even societal, priority. But in the days leading up to a possible TikTok ban, Americans dependence on this virality machine went massively viral.Content creators and influencers said goodbye and posted teary videos. Fans shared serious and jokey goodbyes of their own. Brands and ad agencies lamented the loss; as one marketer moaned, Theres no substitute. The platforms wide-ranging cultural impacts were enumerated in the past tense. The New York Times asserted that TikTok had changed the way we cook, and publishers warned of an impending vacuum for bookselling. The frantic search for a replacement made an unlikely hit of a Mandarin-language app called RedNote. Rivals YouTube and Instagram angled to capitalize on the platforms demise. Even Kevin OLearythe Shark Tank guymanaged to drum up attention for claiming he might buy TikTok. Concerns about espionage were waved away with sarcastic Goodbye to my Chinese spy memes.More than a collective obituary, the outpouring amounted to an endless series of advance eulogies in honor of an entity that we, apparently, could never truly replace. It was, in short, a PR bonanza for TikTok.This has been quite a turnabout. While clearly popular, with 170 million users, TikTok owner ByteDance has long been painted by detractors as a potential tool of the Chinese government, for collecting data on or even influencing its audience. During his first term as president, Donald Trump called for banning TikTok unless it found a U.S. buyer. The Biden administration later voiced similar concerns, and backed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed by Congress with wide bipartisan support. The upshot was that ByteDance had to find a buyer by January 19, or it would become illegal for key service providers including Apple, Google, and Oracle to distribute or support the app, effectively killing it in the U.S. The platform fought this all the way to the Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the act, seeming to seal TikToks fate.But as the pro-TikTok outcry swelled, the political appetite for actually shutting it down seemed to wobble, and the company took full advantage. Two days before the shutdown deadline, it blamed the Biden White House for failing to offer clarity and assurance to TikTok service providers to buy more time to find a solution, declaring that unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called this a stunt, insisting there was no reason for action before the second Trump administration took office: TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them. That night, TikTok video feeds stopped working, replaced with a pop-up message blaming a law banning the app but adding: President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok.And indeed the next morning, Trumpwho, lets not forget, had set the whole TikTok ban idea in motion in 2020promised to stall the new laws enforcement to work out a deal. The platform was operating again within hours. (Apple and Google have yet to make it available again in their app stores, however.) According to Similarweb, by the end of the day, it hit a record 106.8 million active daily users, well above its pre-ban average.The legality of this maneuver is murky at best, and the Wall Street Journal has calledit an illegal amnesty. Nevertheless, its safe to say that the narrative around TikTok has changed decisively. Trump now professes a warm spot in my heart for the platform, which he says helped him win over younger voters. And in a somewhat surprising and oddly timed chain of events, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with Trump last month at Mar-a-Lago, later received an invitation to his inauguration, and was seated front and center next to Americas Big Tech CEOs. Still, the details of whatever Trump has in mind beyond the 75-day extension are vague, and the app could die again; foreign policy hawks are complaining about placating China, and some TikTok creators may not want to be part of a platform too-associated with Trump. In what sounds like a negotiating feint, the president is now suggesting the United States government itself should own like half of TikTok, which he says could be worth hundreds of billions, but would have no value without its U.S. audience. (Again, the legality of such an arrangement is questionable.)Meanwhile, the TikTok faithful have been rewarded for their vocal support, the TikTok Shop sales barely missed a step, and hardly anybody seems worried about the app as an espionage toolleast of all Trump, who dismissed the importance of a geopoliticalrival spying on young kids watching crazy videos. Rumors of potential buyers include MrBeast and Elon Musk. And within a day or two of its resurrection, TikTok had spawned a fresh health trend that involves pouring castor oil in your navel. Yup, back to normal.