Creating Gaps in Understanding: How Gen Z Disrupts Gender Norms on TikTok

Abstract

Since its inception, social media has been an important method of constructing and performing identity, including gender identity. Identity work on social media is perhaps especially relevant to Gen Z (those born after 1996; Parker & Igielnik, 2020), who are the first generation with access to it in early childhood. In this article, we explore how Gen Z constructs and performs gender identity and other facets of intersectional identity on popular video platform TikTok by analyzing selected content from three TikTokers through the lenses of performativity, intersectionality, and automediality.