---
title: "Which came first, Harry Potter or TikTok?"
description: "Harry Potter vs TikTok: Harry Potter came first, by 19 years — 1997 against 2016. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/harry-potter-vs-tiktok/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Harry Potter or TikTok?

**Which came first, Harry Potter or TikTok?: Harry Potter**

1997 — 19 years before TikTok

Harry Potter came first, by 19 years. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK.

## Side by side

|  | Harry Potter | TikTok |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1997 | 2016 |
| Date | 1997-06-26 | — |
| Category | media | technology |
| What happened | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK. | ByteDance launched Douyin in China; TikTok followed abroad in 2017. |

## Harry Potter

Bloomsbury published the first book in June 1997 with a print run of 500 copies, most of which went to libraries, after twelve other publishers had rejected the manuscript. The company's chairman gave the first chapter to his eight-year-old daughter, who demanded the rest. It came out the same year as Netflix was founded and a year before Google.

## TikTok

The app launched in China as Douyin in September 2016 and internationally as TikTok in 2017. What made it global was the 2018 acquisition and merger of Musical.ly, a lip-sync app that had launched in 2014 and already had a large Western user base — so part of TikTok is two years older than TikTok. Douyin and TikTok remain separate apps on separate infrastructure.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Harry Potter or TikTok?

Harry Potter, by 19 years — 1997 against 2016.

### When did Harry Potter start?

1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK.

### When did TikTok start?

2016. ByteDance launched Douyin in China; TikTok followed abroad in 2017.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)