Youth Are Already Queer: Agentive Possibilities Among Queer TikTok Creators (Poster 10)

• In Event: Toward a Stranger and More Posthuman Social Studies

Abstract

This paper enters into a posthuman space to reflect not on the queer subject, but on queerness as an (agentic) discourse circulated by young people through/by digital spaces. Using Barad’s (2007) agential realism, we explore how things are influencing discourse and actions within other pressures, that simultaneously act on/with us. Queer subjectivity’s intra-actions with discourse, policy, and place produce it as a social position that is becoming across time and space. The constancy of responsiveness toward and influence over the construction of spaces like gay bars or drag shows, the politics of marriage equality, available coursework and theoretical scholarship as well as countermessages, conversion therapies, and social discourses move across time. Youth are increasingly using social media as a space and form for perceiving their agency/influence/being influenced, central to their becoming. This chapter considers queer, GenZ TikTokers intra-action with algorithms, material forms, laws, biopower, and capitalism as educative for social studies educators increasingly attentive to queer content and youth engagement in a digital era (Botler, 2016). As queer identities are subjugated, erased by heteronormativity and patriarchy, social media provides a space outside ‘real life’ where youth can wrestle with self-making and being-made (Foucault, 1982). We argue that TikTok provides a wild space for youth to participate in becoming what is not-yet-there (Halberstam, 2020). As we examine the agency on TikTok, we think about the value of these forms in social studies education.

The analysis produced three discussions: locating queer, collective knowledge, and rainbow capitalism. Locating Queer examines two content creators who educate other users and advocate for queer and nonbinary positions. These creators have substantive conversation associated with their TikToks that dialogue about queer positions and the health needs of queer communities. Collective Knowledge deeply examines an influencer who dismantles dominant discourses and sits in the space of being-becoming a transgirl.

This influence joins with and against collective knowledge to re-form gender identities. Rainbow Capitalism examines a set of influencers whose position has enabled them to be advertisers. They have played the algorithm successfully while it has played them. Their product promotion supports the individualized placement of products into communities that may counter other uses of that same product to discordant communities.

TikTok is a space of knowing and unknowing. Creators are posthuman subjects situated in performances, algorithms, and materiality that convert transgression into recognizable discourse. As creators become relatable, they retain creative elements that disrupt gender<>sexuality binaries. The concept ‘creator’ signifies ‘new’ rather than ‘expanding’/‘building’/‘reproducing’. Yet, creations cannot be removed from (the agency of) discursive practices. GenZ queerness intra-acts with notions of gender and sexuality to produce their own conceptualizations the maintain queerness. Educators have a responsibility to (intra-)act with queer youth (and the various ways in which they express/share/intra-act with the world) in affirming their identities and navigating a complex terrain. While we think mostly about agency in civic education, the queer subjectivities created and reflected in these youth give guidance to history and economics teachers.

Authors

• Sandra Schmidt, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Eric Estes, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author