Street Art on TikTok: Engaging with Digital Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Under the influence of social media, aesthetic cosmopolitans have shifted from the real world to the digital world. This study exemplified Jingxuan Peng’s street art on TikTok to explore how street artists digitally increase the transcultural engagement with the cosmopolitan community on social media. As a result, a total of 243 videos and corresponding engagement responses were collected and investigated through text mining analysis. Overall, street art in these short videos was classified as fully exotic, partly exotic, and a combination of local and exotic art, and the study finds that the last category has the highest level of engagement in the digital cosmopolitan community. In conclusion, this study fills a gap in the limited analysis of street art and digital cosmopolitism on social media, and provides managerial insights for street artists and art appreciation in the age of Internet.