TikTok's LGBTQ+ Discourse is Just a Re-Run of Tumblr

If young people today aren’t growing up on TikTok, chances are they’ve already grown up on Tumblr. International friends were formed over fandoms, personal sexualities were discovered, and social justice dominated the microblogging platform. The latter has led to the site often receiving criticism for being full of “social justice warriors” and alternatively, “not safe for work” content—before nudity was banned from the site in December 2018. But for many young people, it was the first online environment where they could truly be themselves. Years later, I find myself endlessly scrolling TikTok, an app becoming known for 16-year-olds making money by dancing in their bedrooms. But underneath this, the platform is hosting the same LGBTQ+ discourses which plagued Tumblr, recycled and absorbed in 60-second video clips by Gen-Z.These patterns seemingly emerged during the height of the pandemic, driven by a TikTok trend involving lip syncing to a section of “Big Picture” from the musical Ordinary Days. The meme normally goes like this: A character sings an elaborate coffee order, overlaid with text showing a long list of identities or preferences they had for themself at a younger age. They then turn to someone else, who says they will have “just tea,” with a…
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