Queered affordances: Gender expressions of Filipino TikTok content creators
Article

Social media spaces have been used as platforms for gender representations and expressions. Therefore, it is essential to define and discuss what features of the platform allow queer individuals to showcase their identities and sensibilities. Moreso, current interest in TikTok has led to scholarly interrogations that define the platform’s potential and pitfalls. The paper, drawing from the constructs of social media affordances and the kapwa model, examined how queer individuals enact queer expressions through TikTok’s social media affordances. Online interviews of queer individuals from mostly urban settings were employed to elicit reflections and experiences of how they queer their social media presence. Moreover, content analysis of TikTok videos was used to understand better how platform affordances enable or restrict the production of queer social media presence. Finally, discussions and recommendations on the potentiality of online spaces to enable the formation of networked publics and communities through the creation of queer content on the social media platform are made.