"It took me almost 30 minutes to practice this." Performance and Production Practices in Dance Challenge Videos on TikTok

Abstract

TikTok is a music-based video sharing social media app famous for users creating short meme and dance videos. TikTok videos are largely based on popular song snippets, which is why lip syncing and dance moves evolve as significant user performance practices in videos. User prosumption has not yet been studied regarding the characteristics of TikTok.This paper is based on social practice and performance theory, social media studies, and participatory online video culture. It uses the #distancedance challenge on TikTok to analyze production practices and strategies of users through qualitative video product analysis. 92 videos were coded and categorized regarding their visual content (who participated in which way) and paratextual elements (used tags and captions). The visual and (para-)textual elements were then analyzed regarding indicators that allow to draw conclusions on users' video creation strategies and performance practices in participating in the #distancedance challenge.The results show videos are mainly performed by single white female teenagers wearing casual outfits in their bedrooms. Users shared their experiences about learning and performing the dance in video captions. While users prepared settings and outfits for their performance, the majority of performances seems rather unplanned or spontaneous. This indicates most videos might be part of a series of user attempts to master the dance challenge resulting in posting the first successful video performance to TikTok. In addition to the dance moves, participants also added gestures as closing elements to their performances. This indicates their knowledge of using signals as part of an online community while at the same time manifesting their belongingness to the community.These first results of a qualitative product analysis illustrate some of users' motivations and effort to participate in TikTok dance challenges. For a better understanding of production practices, further ethnographic research needs to combine methods of production and product analysis.

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“…La auto-producción de los adolescentes en TikTok se basa en la interpretación de vídeos cortos basados en fragmentos musicales (Klug, 2020) que ha eclosionado en una especie de zona de juegos visual (Anderson, 2020) en la que los adolescentes estimulan la prácticas de remezclar música (Bresnick, 2019) y de aprender habilidades como interpretar y realizar movimientos de baile (Ahlse, Nilsson y Sandström, 2020). Bossen y Kottasz (2020), Wang (2020a) y Yang, Zhao y Ma (2019) señalan el entretenimiento, la socialización y la auto-expresión creativa como los principales predictores de su consumo y producción de contenidos en TikTok.…”

Promoting Mental Wellbeing: Young Adults’ Experience on TikTok during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Nigeria

“…The app is popularly known as Douyin in China it was launched in 2016. After its merger with musical.ly, a similar app, it re-debuted in 2018 (Klug, 2020). On TikTok, users can create, post and share 15 seconds to one-minute videos with the community.…”

“…On TikTok, users can create, post and share 15 seconds to one-minute videos with the community. These short videos can be viewed by anyone with an account or access to the direct video link (Klug, 2020). In contrast to similar social media platforms like Vine, TikTok allows users to add attributes such as stickers, text, or visual effects to videos (Lu & Lu, 2019).…”

“…A widespread practice on TikTok is the creation of performances by users through contextual knowledge, transforming a line of lyrics into a new statement, meme, or viral phenomenon. This is usually done by adding text elements and emojis in the video or hashtags in the video caption to create the targeted context (Klug, 2020). Strapagiel (2019) states that TikTok popularised "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X and has been noted as the first example of a viral TikTok meme becoming a chart-topping hit.…”

“…When creating an account, the potential user is asked to choose their interests from a list that includes animals, comedy, food, sports, beauty and style, art, gaming and science and education (Anderson, 2020). As of January 2020, the app had around 800 million users, with its most monthly downloads ever (113 million) in February 2020 most likely favoured by COVID-19 related social distancing and the compulsory social isolation (Klug, 2020). According to Xu et al (2019), women are the largest users of TikTok, and most of its subscribers are young people.…”