TikToking on heaven’s door: Bob Dylan joins social media app as US ban looms
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Songwriter, 83, signs up to TikTok with platform facing Sunday deadline to sell US operation. Bob Dylan is TikToking on heaven’s door after signing up to the social media app – days before it could disappear from his native US. The 83-year-old songwriter has set up an official account, which launched with a 50-second video montage accompanied by a soundtrack featuring Like a Rolling Stone, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Hurricane. The post has attracted nearly 2m views.
That was followed by a second post, a seemingly pointed clip of Dylan at a 1960s news conference saying: “Good God, I must leave right away.”. Dylan’s embrace of TikTok comes shortly before the platform faces being banned in the US, under a law that that has set the app’s Chinese parent a deadline of Sunday to sell the American operation.
TikTok has also asked the US supreme court to temporarily block the law, while President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering ways of suspending a ban. Dylan has garnered 42,000 followers since setting up the account on Tuesday. He also has accounts on Instagram and X, with respective follower counts of 1 million and 485,000.
Users commented on the potentially last-ditch nature of Dylan’s appearance – for his US audience at least – with one writing: “In true Bob fashion, showing up right at the last minute.”. The songwriter has appeared on TikTok in the wake of the latest surge in media and listener interest in his work related to the release of the movie biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet.
