Freepalestine on TikTok: from performative activism to (meaningful) playful activism

ABSTRACT Palestinians, like many other diasporic communities, have, on the one hand, articulated their personal experiences and their subjectivities through digitalized channels. On the other, they have used social networks as tools for resistance, to make their voices heard by global public opinion. Acknowledging that each social medium is a unique socio-technological environment, displaying particular affordances that shape its dynamics of communicative practices and social interactions, this paper focuses on TikTok, the most popular social network among Gen Zers, disclosing how the affordances of this platform shape and engender a new form of activism, that we will define “playful activism”. The study presents an inductive, multimodal discourse analysis of a sample of widely viewed and shared #freepalestine TikToks unveiling how young Palestinians use this network to construct their narratives through playful performances, which show a deep knowledge of the app’s affordances and a great capacity to adapt to TikTok`s cultural and discursive environment. However, most importantly, these playful performances allow them to spread their political messages among a youth audience that potentially had no previous interest (and probably not even knowledge) about Palestine, fostering both the humanization of Palestinians and building a new solidarity network.