Video: Tiktok stitch by user @rynnstar
Run time: 60 seconds
Video starts:Images of young white woman on screen with captioning
User @ oopsie.its. Sydney: Get the worker to turn it on. Wow, did her black friend just get shot?
((video cuts to user @rynnstar))
User @rynnstar: So who’s going to tell the white kids that um our lives are not an opportunity to play act like they’re in some kind of YA novel. Like this is not cute, this is not cute. These little white savior mini movies y’all are making where you literally make black people the props to your own heroism it’s- stop it. And then she like made an apology where she was like you know someone helped me realize this was kind of offensive and I’m sorry bout it but I’m not gonna delete it because I think I’m using my platform for good. Girl, you literally have like only white people praising the video and only people of color and black people telling you that you need to delete, it and you’re ignoring them because the white people told you you were good. And you’re calling yourself a good activist. This is peak white savior. Peak. This is what I mean with y’all saying we need to respect black voices but you don’t actually listen to them.
Depending on how much time a user has spent on Tik Tok this year and which social networks they are a part of, they might be familiar with language and discussions that surround Black Lives Matter (BLM), leftism, liberalism, civil unrest, and white savior complexes. In the past months, people have begun to be more open when grappling with what it means to be Black, indigenous, a person of color, (BIPOC) and white in the United States. On TikTok, Generation Z is creating content about these topics at lightning speed. There is an overarching, and socially constructed idea that Gen Z teenagers make up the most powerful generation the United States has seen (Belle, 2020). Recently, teenagers have been at the forefront of social justice issues in the United States, from the Parkland shooting survivors to Greta Thunberg, to countless organizers of Black Lives Matters protests (Wang, 2020). You may have even heard of some of these famous Gen Z TikTokers even without the app. Claudia M. Conway, Kellyanne Conway’s daughter might have shown up in your news feed in recent months. All this is to say that Tiktok and its creators have a large user base (about 1 billion people internationally) that creates and discards cultural trends within weeks or even days (Business, 2020).
This rapid creation and dismissal can be entertaining, but it may also be detrimental in several ways. After the death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement became globally known, and TikTok content mirrored that. There were montages made, white allies giving their platforms to BIPOC, and the start of discussions regarding performative activism and true allyship for white people. With this, the door has opened to discussions of white privilege and white saviorism. From the Black Lives Matter marches to the election, many people have begun to understand that beloved movies like The Help and The Blind Side are representations of the classic white savior trope. As the year has progressed and discussions in videos and comment sections did as well, the effects of such microburst trends are becoming clear. ACAB, F12, and BLM were all symbols that referred to the fight for racial justice and equity in the United States. Since June when the protests began to peter out, these symbols have since become appropriated by ‘alt’ communities, creating phenomena like ‘ACAB Hello Kitty’ and ‘Revolution Manny’ aesthetic symbols used by mostly white teenagers to symbolize rebellion against the police and revolution within the United States (Bhat, 2020). The creation of a rebellion aesthetic and symbols has led to an entire group of people being able to identify themselves at a glance. These symbols are now on stickers, flags, and even in people’s Animal Crossing homes (Merrilees, 2020). However, the creation of these aesthetics raises the question- how is the creation of rebellion aesthetics for the mainstream a white privilege? This is most exemplified in the recent trends of #civilwar point of view (“POV”) videos.
As the election in the United States drew closer, content on TikTok began to reflect the various possible outcomes of the results. There was a defined uptick in ‘Civil War’ and ‘Anarchy’ point of view videos. In most of these videos, the creators would usually be seen in bloody or dark makeup and acting as though they had just stormed the White House. Though many of these videos had the intention of being empowering in light of the general political chaos, several BIPOC creators came forward stating that this perspective was a point of privilege, and that in perpetuating these imaginary narratives, content creators were disregarding the actual violence that non-white people face, and would continue to face, despite the outcome of the election. In considering these videos, and the language associated with both sides of this discourse, we can being to understand that though white creators may have had good intentions in producing videos that discuss the fall of the current socio-political environment, the narrative of enacting violence to fulfill some type of savior narrative is damaging; not only for current BIPOC viewers, but for future generations as well. Not only does it romanticize the idea of war, but it negates the real work that needs to be done on a societal and cultural level to work towards equity, justice, and understanding within the current confines of our systems. These POVs and the discourse that surrounds them ultimately disregards the hard work it takes to understand the nuances of problems- and in that way, reeks of white privilege.
How white privilege is discussed is crucial to understanding how white privilege is maintained, and white savior complexes are formed. In the case of TikTok and other social media platforms, it is important to address who is doing the talking. In most cases, it is BIPOC that are calling out white people for creating this content. Not only is this work taxing, but it takes away the responsibility of white people to check their racist ideals. Moreover, this lack of accountability allows for people to stay silent on topics and a lack of discussion is just as harmful as violence and discourse. Thinking about the future of these POVs, the stickers that declare ACAB and BLM, and the signaling that occurs with their use, white allies must evaluate their value. Do these symbols actually do work to promote racial justice? Further, how do white allies begin to check their own use of symbols and justice terminology in order to truly ensure that they’re doing their part of the work? I’m not sure that those questions will be answered anytime soon but understanding symbol use in content creation and the discourse that follows seems like a good place to start.
References
Belle, Elly. n.d. “Claudia Conway Isn’t Here To ‘Save Us’ — & Neither Is Gen Z.” Accessed November 16, 2020. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10074517/claudia-conway-trump-response-gen-z-activist-hero.
Business, Sherisse Pham, CNN. n.d. “The Company That Owns TikTok Now Has One Billion Users and Many Are Outside China.” CNN. Accessed November 16, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/20/tech/tiktok-bytedance-users/index.html.
Columnist, Nicole Winthrop Statement. n.d. “It’s Time to Abandon the White Savior Narrative.” The Michigan Daily. Accessed November 16, 2020. https://www.michigandaily.com/section/statement/its-time-abandon-white-savior-narrative.
Bhat, Rema. “Hello Kitty ACAB: The Aestheticization of Politics.” n.d. Accessed November 16, 2020. https://www.34st.com/article/2020/10/hello-kitty-acab-memes-prison-industrial-complex-woke-infographics.
Jackson, Ronald L. 1999. “White Space, White Privilege: Mapping Discursive Inquiry into the Self.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 85 (1): 38–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335639909384240.
Leonardo, Zeus. 2004. “The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of ‘White Privilege.’” Educational Philosophy and Theory 36 (2): 137–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00057.x.
Merrilees, Kristin. 2020. “How a Character From Diary of a Wimpy Kid Became a Symbol of the Revolution.” Medium. June 24, 2020. https://medium.com/swlh/how-a-character-from-diary-of-a-wimpy-kid-became-a-symbol-of-the-revolution-ded2ec064f74.
#stitch with @oopsie.Its.Sydney Cease-and-Desist. n.d. Accessed November 16, 2020. https://www.tiktok.com/@rynnstar/video/6891334770018487557?_d=secCgsIARCbDRgBIAIoARI%2BCjySGvz9nhNX8bUjdX7HVYiPqui7GKsd8IJRv6QqH93qLkF3zXhobbV%2BSd6BWG4sXD5cnIvygFDTRdJLroEaAA%3D%3D&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAi_OeeLaufnR8F5yM57A04_eWiohc6-DaQ45kh5reWiaXM_roJecHrR5KoPWy0A0z&share_item_id=6891334770018487557&share_link_id=91E54B61-62C4-4E02-9D51-89CE48DA7A42×tamp=1605045087&tt_from=email&u_code=dakd17hef681hl&user_id=6791216098680751109&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=email&source=h5_m.
Wang, Arriana McLymore, Echo. 2020. “TikTok Has Its Arab Spring Moment as Teen Activism Overtakes Dance Moves.” Reuters, June 2, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-tiktok-idUSKBN2392WX.