“It’s Viral!” - A Study of the Behaviors, Practices, and Motivations of TikTok Users and Social Activism

ABSTRACT Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have long been used for social activism purpose, and lately the short-video app TikTok saw increased popularity for social activism content. We conducted 9 qualitative interviews with TikTok users who recently posted social activism content to better understand user motivations and creation practices when making TikTok videos related to social activism causes. We present an initial look into why TikTok is used for social activism, and what processes users use to carry out this work. Our interview analysis revealed the following five main themes: (1) motivation and inspiration for posting social activist content comes from a wide range of personal sources, (2) video creation practices largely match TikTok standards, (3) social activism has communities on TikTok that provide encouragement and discussion, (4) interaction with other activists and viewers is crucial for social activism content creation and (5) users choose TikTok for its ability to spread messages more simply and with wider range. These findings provide insight into the unique factors that TikTok brings for social activism and corroborates previous findings in understanding how social activists may use social media for their purposes.