Dissertation
Scrolling Utopia: Identity, Community and Queer TikTok
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005153
Abstract
As a result of the massive disruption wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, in early 2020 social media platforms became a primary site of identity expression and community-building. The emergent short-form video sharing app TikTok strode ahead of the competition in the U.S., with its focus on personalized content and memetic challenges attracting an influx of new users and facilitating the creation of online subcultures, such as Queer TikTok. Focusing on the video creations and experiences of queer women and non-binary people whose sexuality does not center men, this dissertation examines Queer TikTok as a locus of minoritarian performances that illuminate what José Esteban Muñoz has termed “queer utopia.” Through textual analysis of TikTok videos and interviews with TikTok creators this dissertation will demonstrate that queer creators have taken up TikTok as a means through which to stage performances of queerness that refuse the violences of cis-heteropatriarchal U.S. society. Consequently, Scrolling Utopia reveals the ways in which TikTok is being put to queer uses in the wake of the pandemic’s onset, providing a glimpse of the future directions of queer sociality and community building, and the role that digital technologies may play in such processes.
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Details
- Title
- Scrolling Utopia
- Creators
- Claudia Eve Sheehan Skinner
- Contributors
- David J Leonard (Advisor)Lisa Guerrero (Committee Member)Samuel Ginsburg (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Languages, Cultures, and Race, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 272
- Identifiers
- 99901019633701842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation