Sex and the Media research essay:

Tik Tok and Gender Performativity

How are people using TikTok as a way to exploring and expressing queer identities: an
analysis of “the gay side of TikTok”

TikTok now has become a platform for self expression, particularly for queer identifying

people; the specific algorithmic structure of the app allowing subcultures to form and hence

creating ‘the gay side of TikTok’. TikTok is a social media application that allows user to

upload videos up to 60 second in length, as well as allowing users to use sounds, songs and

filters. The app also encourages collaboration and repetition in the form of features such as

stitching section of other videos to your own, or duetting with other creators. The app was

launched August 2018 when the Beijing company Bytedance acquired the Musical.ly and

merged it the Chinese app, Douyin. TikTok was listed the 3rd largest growing brand in 2020

and has been downloaded over 2 Billion times. Starting as an app for sketches and dance

voice, debate and discourse has become a key part of the platform, in particular discussions

of race, ablism, gender and more broadly LGBTQI+ topics. The platform, like many social

media is home to political commentary in the form of pop culture references and jokes. In the

formation of queer TikTok communities, or subculture trends are often used to evoke a

similar style of social commentary of analysis. Although TikTok is not the first app for this

occur on, take Tumblr circa 2011, the unique circumstance of TikTok’s relevance during

2020 made it a perfect host for participating in emerging subcultures.

Despite it’s infancy, TikTok has become a platform for social commentary and political

discourse. However due to the unique method of content production and dissemination on
TikTok, conversation occurs in a vastly different manor than on comparatively platforms

such as YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. In a study by Literat and Kligler-Vilenchik, they

observed that young people, are turning to social media to express political views rather than

using traditional alternatives for political participation (2021). They note the use of popular

culture references as a “shared symbolic resource” in promoting communication in digital

spaces. On TikTok and Youtube, in their study, users likened former American President

Donald Trump’s policies to features of video game Fornite (Literat & Kilgler-Vilenchick

2021, p10). The style of communication on digital platforms such as TikTok can be

understood by Jenkin’s theory of participatory culture. Of the five governing factors that

Jenkins explains as “defining” participatory culture, engagement with TikToks, whether it be

through liking, sharing, commenting, duetting stitching etc. meet all five, especially the

notion that users “feel a degree of social connection” (2009, p6). Social media, by its very

design, invites users to participate offering relatively low barriers to enter into the digital

public space. TikTok enables people to engage in civic debate and discussion in a way that is

not always accessible in physical spaces, for the case of queer identifying people this offers a

change to connect to a community and elements of their shared life experiences.

TikTok’s method of content curation and dissemination through targeted algorithms has

created niche TikTok subcultures, that, through users being aware of this effect, use as a

identity marker – thus the term “gay side of TikTok” was popularised. Unlike other forms of

social media that required the user to like, follow or friend accounts in order to create a feed

of content, TikTok’s main form of participation is through a specialised ‘for you page’ that

hosts endless content based of algorithms that determines your interests, whether it be

accounts, sounds, hashtags etc. The ‘gay side of TikTok” refers to the specific trend of
algorithms showing content of queer content creators to other queer identifying people. The

term ‘gay’ in this instance referring to all queer and LGBTQI+ people, although there is

poignancy in the use of this term as a holistic label when there is very much an issue around

queer representation on the app which often amplifies white, cis, male and able-bodied

creators. It should also be noted that TikTok does not ask for information such as gender or

sexuality, or use any formal categorisations, instead the algorithms pick up on patterns and

common interests through user interaction TikTok’s algorithms, and users’ self-labelling is a

phenomenon unique to TikTok, in large part due to a collective understanding of the

mechanics of these technologies.

Most users of TikTok, young or older, have a certain level of digital literacy – ability to

decode, interpret and comprehend digital media (Hobbs 2020, p3). In particular most TikTok

users are aware that algorithms determine what they see, and in many take this into account

using the platform. Although the concept of personalised algorithms began around 2011, it

wasn’t until the 2016 presidential election that public awareness grew in America and

subsequently Australia and the UK (Hobbs 2020, p4). Thus with TikTok’s popularity starting

in a post-trump era, users consciously engage with the algorithm. Zulli & Zulli note this

phenomenon in their study of the memetic process on TikTok, arguing that the “unofficial

labelling” of grouping is an example of imitation publics – defined as “collection of people

whose digital connectivity is constituted through the shared ritual of content imitation and

replication” (2020, pp 11). ‘Gay’ TikTok can also be interpreted as a digital subculture

within the larger context of the app that helps describe the experience of queer identities

(Robards, BJ, Churchill, B, Vivienne, S, Hanckel, B & Byron, P 2018). Through this lens, the

different sides of TikTok also function as establishing rituals, rules or scripts for performing
said identities, whether it be reaffirming action or way for people to find new ways to express

their identity.

In a short lived TikTok trend people likened the ‘performing’ of their gender to a pop culture

event, typically one that was theatrical such a concert, production or stage show:

“If gender is a performance then I am every production of EVITA during ‘Dice are

rolling’ where Eva Peron passes out, and there’s those 10 bars of orchestral music,

during which no director has ever figured out how to stage a man taking care of his

sick wife. So now one knows what they are looking at, they just know its very loud”

(Higgins 2021)

In this example the user, who identifies as trans and uses they/them pronoun, likens their

gender to theatrical productions of Evita, leading to a pun about their gender being “loud”

and confusing (Higgins, 2021). They are not the only user to this, with over 1M uses of the

hashtag #ifgenderisaperformance. The origins of this trend can be surmised from a slight

misinterpretation of Judith Butler’s theory of Gender performativity. In Performative acts

and gender constitution, Bulter theorises that gender is performative (1988), not a

performance. Regardless this TikTok trend encouraged queer identifying people (and in some

cases non-queer people) to express their gender separate from stereotypical gender signifiers

TikTok’s queer subculture is not the first time people have created specific queer spaces

online centred around an app, Tumblr a blogging website and app a notable example. In the
chapter Twenty years of cyberqueer, Robards, et al. (2018) discuss how the internet has

functioned as a “key channel for communicating and connecting… and engaging in civic

participation” (p153). They suggest that “put simply, the internet provides opportunities for

exploring sexuality and gender, and engaging in forms of queer world-making” (Robards et

al. 2019, p153). Fink and Miller observe this trend in 2011-2013 Tumblr specifically for

“transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming people” (2013). However,

despite the many positives of the Tumblr’s influence for self expression in regards to gender,

they note the role of “emergent media technologies” that “only last for a brief moment”

(2013). Using this logic it could be assumed the ‘gay side of TikTok’ is the new iteration of

this digital queer world, especially when considering Tumblr’s lack of influence and cultural

relevance past 2016. Although many still use the platform, Tumblr’s downfall can be pinned

to a few key factors mostly centre around the monetisation of the platform after the

acquisition by yahoo in 2013. This meant adding advertisements in users’ feed and later on

banning NSFW (not safe for work) content such as nudity and pornography. TikTok

comparatively never allowed NSFW content and has quite strict content rules. Additionally in

app advertising has been present since 2018, well before TikTok become popular amongst the

queer community. Regardless of the differences, it is clear that TikTok and emergence of the

Queer subculture on the app is the newest and potentially largest growing queer social media

space, following the footsteps of Tumblr.

One major factor in the sudden growth of queer representation, discussion and expression that

has yet to be addressed and that is the impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns.

Lockdown measures that were taken by a majority of countries in effort to curb the spread of

coronavirus has significant impacts on communities in many ways. As to be expected these

disruptions impacted the economy and job force, yet what has sometimes been overlooked is
the effect on mental heal, more specifically the ways in which not interacting in a public

setting has impacted people’s understanding of gender and self identity. Many academics in

fields ranging from crisis management to gender studies note the impact lockdowns on

gender, examining both the role of gender in responses to the crisis and challenges to the

gender binary as result of the crisis (Hennekam & Shymko 2020, Fisher & Ryan 2021). In a

May 2020 study Hennekam and Shymko found two specific patterns in regard to gender

performativity that in some cases is intensified with individuals reproducing ‘masculine’ and

‘feminine’ traits and performing conventional or stereotypical codes more frequently. In

contrast, they found, lockdowns are also augmenting people’s own self-awareness and

attentiveness to the gender-binary. This study focused specifically on the role of gender in the

household in producing responses to the crisis, noting that the “deflection from gender

performances” (Hennekam & Shymko 2020, p788) was towards and questioning of gender

roles. In the case of TikTok’s queer subculture, prior to 2020 the app was mostly still home to

memes, dancing and teenagers. However, coinciding with the beginning of the Pandemic,

people (notably older people) began to use TikTok as escape during a period in which was

there more anxiety around money and health, in addition to a deeper questioning of identity

particularly in regards to the gender binary. As such, the ‘gay side of TikTok’ was forming as

people were not only joining the app but question their own identity and potentially looking

for new scripts and ways to express their identity.

TikTok’s specific app usability and relevance in 2020 during the global pandemic, helped

create the internet’s newest queer subculture; hosting both serious analytical discussion,
while also allowing users to participate in queer scripts through trends and memes. The key

features of communication and engagement present on the app has enabled TikTok for high

rates of civic participation and through its young demographic encourages younger people to

consider social and political commentary. Likewise, the users’ collective understanding of the

highly targeted algorithms facilitated the formation of subcultures labelled as ‘sides’ or

simply just “gaytok”. These subcultures provide language and a script to understanding queer

experiences and have enabled people to participate through imitating trends. While queer

culture has found a home on the internet for many years, in sites such as Tumblr, in 2020 the

simultaneous questioning of societal beliefs around identity as result of lockdowns and the

sudden uptake in users in TikTok meant that people were seeking out outlets locked to

express their experiences and TikTok was able to provide this. However ‘the gay side of

TikTok’ is not without its flaws, in part due to reliance on TikTok’s algorithms. Users’ have

cited instances of being shadow banned – actively being suppressed by the algorithm

(Santiago 2020), with studies showing that general search algorithms tend to “privilege

whiteness and discriminate against people of colour, specifically women of colour” (Roberto

Santiago 2021, p185). Although TikTok’s gay side has been able to provide community for

many people, the presentation on the app still at times remains white, cis and abled bodied for

many; importantly users must take into account the bias of the app and themselves when

engaging in discussion about identity, gender and queerness.

Word count: 2033.

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