Noise in sonic social media: Memetic soundscapes of Deep TikTok

Abstract

This article contends that the attention economy of social media reflects a shift toward soundscapes where networked sound objects – whether popular music or ambient sound, remixed speech or glitched audio – play a central role in amplifying user engagement. The analysis centers on audiovisual communities that operate as contra points to common TikTok trends, with particular attention to the Alt genre and niche phenomenon of Deep TikTok or DeepTok. Sound-linking and hashtagging practices within DeepTok reveal a dual dynamic: To survive the algorithmic visibility contest, DeepTokers creatively repurpose TikToknative sharing features, playing by the platform’s communicative rules. Meanwhile, glitch techniques deployed in the service of attention capture constitute engaging spaces that simultaneously incorporate and reject mainstream content. We inquire into these relations by exploring video and platform metadata attached to a curated collection of 497 #deeptiktok posts, arguing for a contextual understanding of memetic soundscapes that reenact noise.