TikTok and the Revolution
I’ll be honest, when TikTok initially started becoming popular, I scoffed at it as a whole. In my mind, it was a Vine wannabe, made for people with short attention spans, and just the next big thing that was sure to be a flop eventually. What was even more frustrating about it was that as a social media manager at a large agency, a new platform like this meant a LOT of research learning a new platform and trying to help a client that didn’t even understand the other platforms that have been around forever somehow go viral on this one. It was one massive headache. However, since TikTok came out, I’ve done a lot of scrolling (A LOT of scrolling… way too much scrolling… other TikTok users will understand). In that scrolling, I discovered something kind of amazing. TikTok, in a year of isolation and hopelessness, has managed to bring people together. And I’m not talking about viral dances or outrageous audios, but with real stories, fantastic advice, and massive amounts of solidarity.
Because of TikTok’s algorithm that whittles down the videos you see based on the ones you seem to like, I found myself in a side of TikTok FULL of women talking in extreme, vulnerable detail, about their lives. They will talk about everything from body image issues to relationships with their family, from what it’s like as a woman in the workplace to all their dating struggles. They talk about overcoming their own limiting beliefs and embracing a life they want to lead. The stories they tell are inspiring, heartwrenching, hilarious, and painful. Above all, the stories they tell are real and relatable. I think about the way women organized during second-wave feminism, getting together in back rooms and tiny offices, sharing their stories with each other behind closed doors, strategizing, and coming out of those back rooms as powerful units bent on revolution. I think something similar is happening now on TikTok, except these conversations aren’t happening in back rooms hidden away from the rest of the world. They’re happening right here on this global, viral app that has over 600 million eyes on it daily. Sure, you won’t generally see these videos unless the app determines you should, but they are out there, totally accessible.
Now, it’s one thing to hear story after story of women taking charge of their lives or suffering at the hands of the patriarchy and quite another to create lasting social change. However, here’s why I think this TikTok community is so revolutionary - it truly has the power to change lives one person at a time. Watching these videos and hearing these stories has changed me, and after talking with my sister, it has changed her as well. We both feel more empowered, more deserving of the things we want in life, more capable of shucking off at least some of the weight of the patriarchy and making our lives amazing. We both feel angrier than ever, and anger is an extremely powerful emotion. Our own personal experiences coupled with hearing the experiences of millions of other women firsthand have placed us at the complete end of our rope. We are no longer accepting people’s bullshit. We’ve got all the fire and rage built up in us, with slightly less personal trauma than it may have taken if we hadn’t heard the stories of other women. Some traumatic, infuriating thing may have happened to us once, but because we’ve heard the stories of so many other women who have experienced the same thing, we are not just beaten down by our experience, we are ready to fight back.
We are ready to have tough conversations with the people in our lives who uphold the patriarchy, who have internalized misogyny, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc. and who don’t even realize it. We are ready to go out and protest for things that maybe don’t affect us personally, but are devastating to other communities. We are more passionate than ever about voting rights. We are ready to refuse to associate with people, especially men, who don’t treat us with the utmost respect. These may not seem like revolutionary acts, but if done in mass by millions of people, there’s no denying that we could make change.
“Read Banned Books” themed window display at a bookstore. Stories have always been powerful.
I’ve always felt that stories are the most powerful thing in the world. It’s why I’ve been obsessed with literature since I was 7, why I got a degree in English, why I continue to write to this day. Stories have the power to change us and the world. And the stories being told by women, BIPOC, indigenous communities, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community on TikTok are enough to radicalize anyone whose eyes, ears, and heart are open.
Get yourself on TikTok, and prepare yourself for a revolution.
