by Chiara Fehr
As first year PhD student, I have had the chance to pilot my research study. Adapting Phematerialist, creative, co-production approaches to qualitative research this pilot study has created an incredibly rich data set providing insight into teenage girls the experiences techno sexual assemblage facilitated through TikTok. The study consisted of several focus groups with eight 17 year olds using creative methods. This included a ‘TikTok show and tell,’ a collaging session, and a utopic mapping exercise. Here I share a few themes which have been identified and their connection to contemporary issues.
From the data generated in these sessions what emerged was a picture of TikTok as a highly sexual environment, which however the girls highly problematized and critiqued.
(All participants have been given pseudonyms under which they are being referred to here)
Platform affordances
Key to this discussion were the apps affordances (features) which the girls were exposed to and with which they interacted.
Advertisements
Particularly central to the conversation was the prevelance and content of advertisements which the girls were shown. During the one exercise where the girls were asked to write down the things which aggravated them on TikTok Rebecca said “number one: adds” to which every participant held up their paper with some version of ‘advertisement’ on it.
The girls often spoke about how clothing items which they were shown on their for you pages (fyp) very explicitly sexualised. Much of the content they received being narrated form a man’s perspective.
In only one of these example Rebbeca said:
“[the voice] would say… ‘I would melt if my girl came in the room with this’…. and validate that and making women feel like I won’t be attractive unless I get these leggings to make my butt look like this……I see my sister wearing them leggings and she’s 13…..man I hate these leggings”
When asked how these adds made them feel Ellie said it:
“[Feels like] you should constantly look cute and appeal to the standards of men.”
Filters
When talking about TikTok filter, the girls again approached this with allot of critique, often using the word ‘weird’ and ‘creepy’ to describe how it made people look “like when they try and shrink your nose” (Clara). However, Marta mentioned that while she agree with the strangeness of the look, she stated that for a while she was “obsessed” with the green eyes filter, and said the app had “put it in her mind” that she would be prettier with green eyes.The conversation on filters furthermore opened a much wider discussion on plastic surgery. However, while they noted that they thought allot of young people get surgery to emulate the ‘look’ which filters gave them, they found that content of people going to get procedures done to be much more compelling to audiences. As Marta said:
“…they become almost addicted to what other people look like and the videos of other people getting their lip filler done”
Trend-ification of bodies
Many participants brought up the ‘trend cycle’ of bodies and their exhaustion with the “categorising” of appearance. Sophie said to this “No body is gonna have like 20000 surgeries a year to keep up,” implying also that by nature of these trends it was required for people to get procedures done.
Shadow-Banning and Content Promoting
During all sessions, a figure that persistently came up as a reference point was the OnlyFans creator Bonnie Blue, who has produced a plethora of highly problematic content. As Clara spoke of queer creators being shadow banned – saying:
“the fact that you can’t say lesbian sex coz you get banned……I’ve followed allot of people that have had their accounts shadow banned for talking about being queer”
– the conversation quickly shifted to Bonnie Blue as well as well as other content they wish was shadow banned instead, but they felt was being promoted.
Clara: …..they get like shadow banned because their talking about being queer but then she’s allowed to then…..say stuff like that
Interviewer: how does that make you feel?
Clara: well, I guess it’s validating women as only being the perfect sex thing for men
Moderation: TikTok Enabling Predatory Behaviour
Additional to conversations on shadow banning and promotion were deeply concerning talks about the lack of moderation around content and comments of which “so many are super sexual” (Sophie). Often the girls would reference things they had seen and say “ew” or “how is that allowed?”
A key example of this is the preying on of very young girls by older men on the app. Speaking about a comment section under a video of a girl who she thought to be 11 Alex accounted:
“I saw this girl she was with her friend…..I guess they’re not meant to be on TikTok or anything…and then guys…especially grown dads were like ‘oh you’re so pretty girl let me follow you I sent you a DM’ and I’m like what …or they’ll be like oh she’s only 10……have you seen those comments that are like oh ‘if her age is on the clock she can….get the cock?”
While some of the participants were shocked, Marta, Layla and Rebecca said that they had seen similar things.
“there’s like random people yeah, this is really weird, like this girl was wearing normal clothes and for a second it was a picture of her fully naked” (Alex)
Although seeming somewhat used to the occurrence, some of the participants shared their experiences of cyberflashing on the app, mentioning that they found it problematic on reflection but they never “deeped it before” (Marta).
The girls furthermore reported that sometimes they would feel “tricked” (Rebecca) into swiping onto a profile that was promoting OnlyFans content, by a video with a false picture carousel.
Constructing Girlhood/womanhood
Embodiment
A key theme that came up around the influence TikTok held over their embodiment was a conversation about skin care. The conversation began in focusing on the prevenlance of young children posting ‘get ready with me’ content.
“there’s like these siters and they’re like 4 and 6 or something and they do get ready with me and their mum is in the background and they do a full makeup and skin care” (Marta).
Picking up on this Eli spoke of her “addiction” with skin care. She shared:
“I think before I watched TikTok I watched YouTube and I would see the Americans going out and doing these massive shopping hauls and like skin care back to school stuff and I used to be obsessed with all of that….”
She then poignantly said:
“Maybe I didn’t want the actual product, maybe I just wanted to feel like I was one of those people, like put together, doing their skin care, like the motion of doing it was more important to make me feel like one of those people”
A backlash against self-sexualisation and ‘girlification’
A major talking point to criticism of the presence of sexuality on TikTok was women’s self-sexualisation on the app.
As mentioned previously, Bonnie Blue was a central character in this, having come up in the first session and Marta sharing an interview of her during the TikTok show and tell. A key aspect of their criticism was their feeling of the OnlyFans creator’s actions “putting other women down to promote herself” (Alex)
They felt that through their larger presence online, creators such as her were impacting them heavily not necessarily by making them feel like they have to sexualise themselves as a direct outcome of her videos, but that they felt it dictated expectations which boys would have towards them. Mentioning another creator, the vocalized their discomfort with female creator on TikTok lives who will perform different acts in accordance with what digital ‘gifts’ they receive from their viewers. As Marta said:
“it’s so weird…..like if you give them a rose, they’ll meow or something and then it’s like oh with a crown and then the one that costs like £50 she’ll pour milk all over herself.”
To this some of the participants made faces, with some exclaiming “ew. Additionally, a criticism of Bonnie Blue was her claim of empowering women.
As put by Clara and Ellie
“The fact that she was saying that she was trying to empower women…. while…” (Clara) “…also saying that women are lazy if they don’t give themselves to men” (Ellie).
Sophie added
“it’s horrible…it’s also her acting like she is a feminist…it’s making it seem like people who are feminist, they’re like that so they say in the media like oh feminists are doing this, sleeping with 1000 men a day, like it just makes it have a bad reputation for everyone.”
A final point of this criticism of self-sexualisation especially for monetary gain, was the criticism of the phrase “I’m just a girl” used often across the internet as well as by Bonnie Blue in the interview.
“It’s like she’s finding an excuse for all these things she’s doing…..because you’re just making yourself look stupid you know…you’re making it seem like all girls are stupid…”
Perceiving Boy’s Perceptions
Present throughout almost all conversations, especially when speaking about the hyper sexualisation of women online, was the influence online misogynyst content would have over boys and the implications that would carry for them in the boy’s interactions with them. The girls accounted that many of the boys in their school held politically conservative and right wing views – many supporting Turmp- , which they believed had been influenced by the TikTok algorithm, as well as well as manospher content such as looksmaxxing. Worryingly, the girls described a boy in their class that had started his own ‘manfluencer’ podcast. They accounted how boys in discussions about politics would “gang up with each other” and not “hear them out.”
Especially shocking were some of the comments the girls shared which boys in their class had made around the opinions boys at their school held about abortions. A boy had told one of the girls that he would not allow his girlfriend to get an abortion.
“…they don’t think abortions are right and they don’t think…they’re not pro-choice…they’ll never care” (Sophie)
Other conversations ranged from sexual standards set by OnlyFans creators to views on contraception and abortion which boys in their class would argue with them about in an upsetting manner, with Marta even giving an account of a boy in their class who had started their own ‘man-fluencer’ podcast.
Girls discussed boys at their school not understanding the seriousness of their misogynist behaviour.
“They do it to wind us up, to get a reaction from us….to them it’s all a joke,” (Elisabeth)
The girls in this study described feeling resigned to this misogynistic behaviour towards them from boys commenting:
“It’s kinda bad when you say it out loud…it feels very normalised in a weird way.”
Digitally Mediated Desire
When speaking about TikTok as a venue of exploring desire the group spoke about thirst traps and edits as ‘cringey,’ often referring to “weird male thirst traps” (Rebecca).
BookTok/Whattpadd
However, through a conversation about BookTok, which they initially also categorized as ‘cringey’ – as Sophie said semi-mockingly
“maybe it’s people who’ve never had relationships before and need to go on BookTok to live vicariously through people”
– that the conversation lead to WhattPadd other fanfiction websites. Most girls spoke about reading fiction uploaded to these platforms which they admitted was “a little raunchy” (Layla). Most of them had found out about these platforms through TikTok and some said that they often saw content of ‘smutty’ (Ellie) pages that were posted on their algorithm.
Gamification of Romance and Relationships
In conversations adjacent to BookTok, there was allot of dialogue about games such as Episode which were advertised on TikTok and where players could explore different relationships through game play.
“It’s basically like love island on your phone” (Marta).
A part of this discussion was also the fueling of parasocial relationships which some people had.
“I can’t believe the teenage girls that were obsessed [with celebrities] could play with them as their episode characters.”
Young Love
On a final note, and in stark contrast to much of the rest of the conversations which dealt with TikTok as a hypersexualised space, Layla spoke about the content which she shared with her boyfriend on TikTok. Showing me on her phone during the collaging session, her example showed a retro TV projecting blue neon letters saying, “8 billion faces and yours is my favourite.”
Feminist Educational Engagement Lab 