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TikTok Is Theatre, Theatre Is TikTok Trevor Boffone

Theatre History Studies, Volume 41, 2022, pp. 41-48 (Article)

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https://doi.org/10.1353/ths.2022.0028

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/875677

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TikTok Is Theatre, Theatre Is TikTok

—TREVOR BOFFONE

I didn’t expect to become a meme.1 But that’s exactly where I found myself in spring 2019. I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a video of two of my high school students and I dancing to “Fiesty” by Zachty with the text “get you a teacher like this” plastered across the top. Suddenly, what had begun as a private ritual in which my students and I shared space together, making dancing videos on short- form video apps such as TikTok, soon became something incredibly public- facing. The meme was posted on popu lar Instagram meme pages and subsequently circulated on thousands of Instagram stories. And, at every turn, Instagrammers tagged me in the post, drawing my eye back to this video of two Black teen twins, Takia and Talia, and me, a white and nerdy high school teacher, dancing as my ID lanyard swings back and forth. Later, curiosity got the cat and I went to Facebook. I searched “dancing teacher” and, to my surprise, the meme had been shared thousands of times on Facebook. Through a series of TikTok, Dubsmash, and Triller videos, my high school students and I went viral repeatedly through out the spring 2019 semester, performing complicated and quick- fire dance routines and silly nonsensical videos that ultimately led to national media appearances on Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Access Hollywood, Localish, and the like. As my teaching became the subject of pub lic attention and my classroom was memed time and time again, I thought to my- self: this is theatre. And, as a theatre scholar, I began to question: What is the re- lationship between TikTok and theatre? And, how is TikTok a theatrical space?2

When TikTok launched in the United States in August 2018, it became syn- onymous with Gen Z. Zoomers flocked to the site to create a generational sense of identity, engaging with the app’s silly and DIY aesthetics in the process. By

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the time much of the United States was at home social distancing in the spring of 2020, TikTok had fully transitioned from a space dominated by teenagers into a digital playground for all generations. The app became the most downloaded iPhone and Android app of 2020 and, in the process, became ground zero for theatrical experimentation. The range of material included TikTok creators hit- ting dance challenges and filming short cooking tutorials; professional artists singing; and even a cohort of musical theatre composers crowdsourcing a new musical. As TikTok’s presence in US popu lar culture at large grew, so too did the app’s influence on theatre itself. That is, TikTok experiments such as the much- publicized Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical marked a shift in how theatremakers and audiences at large viewed the legitimacy of TikTok and how the platform intercepted theatre’s perception of the digital.

For many avid TikTokers, however, the power of TikTok as a site of performance- making was no secret. Although TikTok was not available in the United States until August 2018,3 the platform quickly became one of the most downloaded social media applications of the 2010s and the most downloaded app in 2020, outpacing mainstays such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.4 From its onset, TikTok has been an inherently theatri cal space, one that encourages us to reexamine the very ethics and craft of performance. TikTok makes per- formance in ways that have implications for theatre production, theatre history, and dramaturgy. TikTok, I argue, challenges us to reframe and rethink our ways of understanding performance, accessibility, self- determination, and embodi- ment. My work here is not invested in unraveling the influences of TikTok on theatre itself. Rather, I am invested in unpacking how TikTok itself is theatre, a phenomenon that effectively blurs the lines between live performance, embod- iedness, theatricality, and digital culture.

TikTok Is Everywhere

Whether TikTok features teenagers re- creating dance challenges, musical the- atre stars belting in their bathrooms, Black creators documenting the George Floyd protests, or K- Pop fans trolling Donald Trump, TikTok is a performance space.5 In Theatre and Social Media, Patrick Lonergan proposes that viewing so- cial media through a performance lens encourages “new ways of thinking about authenticity, creative proprietorship, authorial intention, and the relationship between artist and audience.”6 TikTok takes this phenomenon to a new, more far- reaching level given the platform’s unparalleled domination of social media in the United States since the onset of the COVID- 19 pandemic.7 While US

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residents were self- isolating at home for much of 2020, TikTok gave app users a feeling of community and belonging. It helped us pass the time. It helped us find joy and entertainment. And it distracted us from the endless cycle of bad news that once felt like a 2020 phenomenon but has since become a part of our everyday realities. Even when TikTok does include video content on pressing matters such as the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, it shifts the power from traditional news outlets to TikTok users, who find empowerment as they reshape the narrative and distill information in a way free from the capi- talist inklings indicative of major news outlets. As this cultural work has grown, it has become apparent that TikTok is no longer a niche social media platform populated by teens but rather has become thoroughly ingrained in US culture.8 While Zoomers such as Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Bella Poarch, and Loren Gray may still be among the app’s most- followed accounts and, correspondingly, the platform’s trendsetters and cultural beacons, the platform has an incredibly diverse user base that enables TikTok to penetrate many vari ous communities in the United States. Trends that begin on TikTok become the music that domi- nates the radio airwaves, the popu lar foods that fly off grocery store shelves, the must- have fashions that turn high school hallways into fashion show runways, and the native digital theatre that fills our cell phone screens every night as we endlessly scroll before bedtime. TikTok is everywhere.

TikTok Is Accessible

Whereas making and attending live, in- person theatre is oft en marked by barriers — cutthroat auditions, unpaid internships, expensive tickets, travel costs, inac- cessible theatre spaces, and so on—TikTok as a digital theatre space squarely re- jects many of these obstacles. In fact, part of the appeal of TikTok is how acces- sible the space is, as well as how the app facilitates performance- making. Artists and spectators alike need only a smart phone to create videos and scroll end- lessly. Some of TikTok’s critics claim the app isn’t accessible given it requires a cell phone and/or internet access. Even so, because of its reach into US popu lar culture, even non- TikTokers inevitably encounter TikTok in other online and offline spaces. That is, TikTok videos begin on TikTok before spilling over into other digital spaces and beyond. Viral TikTok videos are now regularly featured on news and entertainment television, are written about in print media, and are now the topic of water cooler conversations. Even if someone doesn’t use Tik- Tok, they interact with and are influenced by TikTok. TikTok dance challenges become the official choreographies to trending music. TikTok slang begins on

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the app before penetrating our everyday vernacular. Grocery stores and book- stores, for example, feature sections highlighting—and encouraging shoppers to buy—products such as feta cheese and young adult novels that have gone viral on TikTok. Accordingly, at a certain point, even non- TikTokers who refuse to download the app begin to participate in the app’s culture, becoming TikTokers in the process. In this way, TikTok’s accessibility facilitates theatrical experimen- tation and digital spectatorship that reimagines audiences who may not even re- alize they are interacting with TikTok.

Still, TikTok is not without its criticisms. The platform has routinely been the subject of concerns regarding how the platform reinforces white supremacy, anti- Blackness, ableness, and other power structures at play in analog US cul- ture. These criticisms should come as no surprise given how digital platforms replicate the biases of those who create the platforms as well as racism and sys- tems of oppression at large.9 Yet, as TikTok scholars such as Melanie Kennedy, Shauna Pomerantz and Miriam Field, Alex Hack, Jessica Sage Rauchberg, and myself have recognized, TikTok can be a space of harm and also a place for joy.10

TikTok Is Self- Determination

TikTok is a space where self- determination reigns supreme. On TikTok, self- determination allows TikTokers to hone and retain their agency. Self- determination is marked by intrinsic motivation and the ability to control one’s own life and public- facing image. That is, TikTok facilitates an auto- artistic directorship in which creators establish their own artistic practice. And, in the digital world of TikTok, self- determination is rooted in the potential to go viral. More than other social media platforms, TikTok is synonymous with virality. Because of its powerful algorithm and personalized For You Page (FYP), anyone and any- thing can go viral. TikTok is a space of radical virality that features a digital ero- sion of how virality works in other social media spaces. Sometimes what goes viral on TikTok corresponds with what might go viral on another social media site such as Instagram or Twitter (a video of a TikToker meeting Jennifer Lopez and crying, for instance). Other times it doesn’t (a video of a teenager listening to a new song and staring dead- faced into the camera, for example). This ran- domness and unpredictability are part of the appeal of TikTok. TikTokers feel like they could go viral, gain clout (aka TikTok fame), and perhaps even begin to make money from their TikToking whether through the creator fund, going live, or lucrative brand sponsorships and promotions.

The appeal of going viral and spilling into other analog and digital spaces

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creates a platform culture in which creators retain artistry. For TikTok celeb- rity Addison Rae, this meant a string of viral videos in 2019 could lead to head- lining appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and a starry de- but in the Netflix reboot He’s All That in 2021. For those in the performing arts, be it actors, dancers, musicians, and the like, these artists no longer must wait to be seen, pay their dues, or be accepted into a competitive—and expensive— fellowship or graduate program. Using TikTok’s arsenal of digital video- making tools, creators can use TikTok to fashion an identity as an artist. They can use the space to build a following and bypass the traditional routes to fame and/or suc- cess that previous generations may have navigated. TikTok’s self- determination, then, holds the potential to reshape access to theatrical spaces. On TikTok, crea- tors can tap into their self- determination to forge an equitable space for com- munities that have traditionally been excluded from the narrative—queer folks, people of color, and disabled people, for example.

Take, for instance, the way that the Ratatouille musical experiment enabled Gen Z musical theatre composers to emerge. These composers were not profes- sional songwriters and lyricists from the Broadway establishment but rather as- piring musical theatre artists who came together through a crowdsourcing ex- periment on TikTok. As every theatre on Broadway and the West End sat dark on New Year’s Day 2021, TikTok composers were shining brightly as audiences from across the world tuned into Ratatouille. It didn’t take long to recognize that these songs were not just silly TikTok tunes but together constituted a legitimate musical theatre score. TikTok had enabled a new form of creation and theatre- making, a process that continued to proliferate in 2021 with creations such as Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear’s Bridgerton: The Musical. Consequently, self- determination on TikTok shifts the power from institutions to the individual, giving artists and creators the ability to forge their own narrative, one free of au- ditions, applying for grants, selling tickets, and the like.

TikTok Is Embodiment

TikTok centers the body, something the platform achieves through internet memes that have come to dominate contemporary US popu lar culture. Although memes come from nearly every social media platform, on TikTok, meme cul- ture is marked by embodied memes. For instance, Twitter memes rely on text, pictures, and GIFs. On TikTok, memes rely on TikTokers featuring their bod- ies in addition to audiovisual cues such as trending sound bites and video ef- fects that complete the meme. The TikToker is the meme. TikTok isn’t the land

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of popu lar memes such as “i can haz cheezburger,” Michael Jordan crying, the Ally McBeal dancing baby, Kermit the Frog drinking tea, or Philosoraptor. On TikTok, you become the meme. You become the performer even if you don’t realize—or think—you’re performing. You become the piece of culture that cir- culates until it penetrates our collective US popu lar culture. As you scroll on other social media sites, you see yourself. You see your TikTok video and realize you’ve been memed. Someone has downloaded your TikTok video and circu- lated it across the internet. What once began as self- determination and partak- ing in TikTok’s explicitly pub lic life has transformed into the radical practice that plucks random TikTokers from anonymity and launches them into viral fame.

Although virality is baked into many social media platforms, TikTokers know upfront that the possibility of being memed is part of the agreement of publicly posting on the site. That is, the point of TikTok is to get memed; it’s why we TikTok. What began as an in di vidual digital practice soon becomes one of collectivity. Since TikTok is built on a culture of mimicking and re- creating trends, other TikTokers begin to replicate your voice, your movement, your fa- cial expressions, you name it. As they embody the meme, they are embodying you.11 The more time spent on TikTok, the more users become part of the meme culture that makes TikTok a hotbed for cultural dissemination. Inevitably, Tik- Tokers’ identities become synonymous with the app. To quote or reference a TikTok meme in conversation is to be part of trending conversations. It’s to be popu lar. It’s to have clout.

TikTok Is the Present

In Renegades: Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok, I propose that teenagers today use social media platforms like TikTok “to self- fashion identity, form supportive digital communities, and exert agency.”12 Although Renegades focuses on teenagers and Gen Z in general, this cultural work is not limited to the confines of TikToking youth. Even though casual onlookers and skeptics may inevitably say, “It’s just TikTok,” this cultural work extends far beyond Tik- Tok itself and, accordingly, has real- world implications. Media studies scholar Andreas Schellewald recognizes how TikTok’s “ephemeral video clips appear- ing on people’s content feeds present themselves not as random and short- lived entertainment but as complex, cultural artifacts.”13 That is, TikTok has become a criti cal space in which accessibility, self- determination, and embodiment re- shape cultural expression, identity politics, and community- building. As Tik-

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Tok becomes more embedded in US culture, the app’s theatricality inevitably permeates the way we live our day- to- day lives. As we scroll TikTok, we become spectators and fellow collaborators. As we comment and interact with videos, we engage with TikTok’s meme culture, which holds the tremendous power to launch random creators from anonymity into internet fame. As we engage in the culture of virality, we facilitate a real- time theatre history that dictates which memes will penetrate the meme archive and become embedded in popu lar cul- ture. As we create videos, we embody TikTok. As we collectively engage with TikTok, we partake in the app’s theatricality, conveying how TikTok is not just theatre in the future but theatre in the present.

Notes

1. I would like to thank Jane Barnette, Carla Della Gatta, Sarah Jerasa, Lisa Jackson- Schebetta, and Bryan M. Vandevender for their feedback on previous drafts of this essay.

2. I am hardly the first scholar to question the relationship between theatre performance and digital spaces. These conversations have been especially pertinent in the age of the COVID- 19 pandemic. For more perspectives, see Brian Eugenio Herrera, “In Defense of ‘Remote Theatre,’” Prompt: A Journal of Theatre Theory, Practice, and Teaching 1, no. 2 (2021); Sarah Bay- Cheng, “Pixelated Memories: Performance, Media, and Digital Tech- nology,” Contemporary Theatre Review 27, no. 3 (2017): 324–39; and Sarah Bay- Cheng, “Digital Historiography and Performance,” Theatre Journal 68, no. 4 (2016): 507–27.

3. TikTok is owned by Chinese social media company ByteDance. ByteDance launched TikTok’s sister app Douyin in China in 2016 and TikTok internationally in 2017. In 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly, which had become considerably popu lar with teenagers in the United States and United Kingdom. ByteDance merged Musical.ly with TikTok, inheriting the former’s user base and ensuring that TikTok enjoyed a successful launch in the US social media market.

4. Jing Zeng, Crystal Abidin, and Mike S. Schäfer, “Research Perspectives on TikTok and Its Legacy Apps,” International Journal of Communication 15 (2021): 3161–72.

5. Alexandra Harlig, Crystal Abidin, Trevor Boffone, Kelly Bowker, Colette Eloi, Pamela Krayenbuhl, and Chuyun Oh, “TikTok and Short- Form Screendance Before and After Covid,” International Journal of Screendance 12 (2021): 190–209.

6. Patrick Lonergan, Theatre and Social Media (Lon don: Palgrave, 2015), 5. 7. Zeng, Abidin, and Schäfer, “Research Perspectives on TikTok and Its Legacy Apps,” 3165. 8. Trevor Boffone, Renegades: Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2021). 9. Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

(New York: New York University Press, 2018), and Ruha Benjamin, Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2019).

10. Melanie Kennedy, “‘If the Rise of the TikTok Dance and e- Girl Aesthetic Has Taught Us Anything, It’s That Teenage Girls Rule the Internet Now’: TikTok Celebrity, Girls, and the Coronavirus Crisis,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 23, no. 6 (2020): 1069–76;

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Shauna Pomerantz and Miriam Field, “A TikTok Assemblage: Girlhood, Radical Media Engagement and Parent- Child Generativity,” Visual and Cultural Identity Constructs of Global Youth: Situated, Embodied, and Performed Ways of Being, Engaged and Belonging, edited by Fiona Blaikie, 139–57 (Abingdon- on- Thames, UK: Routledge, 2021); Alex Hack, “Witness Me: How TikTok Users Broke with the Sociopathic Ameri can Gaze in the Wake of George Floyd’s Murder,” Flow Journal 27, no. 1 (2020): https://www.flowjournal.org; Jessica Sage Rauchberg, “TikTok’s Digital Eugenics: Challenging Ableism and Algorith- mic Erasure through Disability Activism,” Flow Journal 27, no. 1 (2020), https://www .flowjournal.org; and Boffone, Renegades.

11. TikTok’s culture of re- creating trends has also been the site of controversy. Since 2018, Black and Latinx TikTokers have seen their work re- created by white TikTokers without being given credit, opening up conversations on and off TikTok about cultural appro- priation, anti- Blackness, and Blaxploitation in mainstream US culture. For more on this, see Boffone, Renegades.

12. Boffone, Renegades, 6. 13. Andreas Schellewald, “Communicative Forms on TikTok: Perspectives from Digital Eth-

nography,” International Journal of Communication 15 (2021): 1439.

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