TikTok as a Tool for Navigating the Lesbian Lexicon
Queer Media Technologies Then & Now
Through analysis of audiovisual content created and consumed by queer users on the popular app ‘TikTok,’ and by examining call logs kept by the Lesbian Switchboard of New York City, I will compare the ways in which these media technologies strengthen Lesbian communities through their dissemination of information and resources to queer women. Lesbian Switchboards operated in New York City from 1972 to 1997, and in Toronto from 1976 to 1980. Cait Mckinney, author of “Information Activism, a Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies” notes that “telephone hotlines were significant information technologies within lesbian-feminist social movements, performing on-demand outreach that informed callers about print resources, services, businesses and social spaces they could access.”
‘Lesbian TikTok’ serves a similar role to Lesbian Switchboards in the strengthening of Lesbian communities through delivering information to users about print resources, services, businesses, and LGBTQ2IA-friendly social spaces that exist both online and in-person.
While neither New York nor Toronto’s Lesbian Switchboards are in operation today, information and support lines remain important support systems for LGBTQ+ communities and the individuals they continue to serve. Examples of similar support lines and services include “Switchboard LGBT” which has continued to operate out of the United Kingdom since 1974, and, closer to home, The Landing which offers University of Alberta students “support for gender and sexual diversity.” Organizations like the Landing have incorporated drop-in zoom meetings as a means of supporting those who access their services.
While the all-encompassing acronym ‘LGBT’ provides a larger umbrella that is inclusive of more gender expressions and sexual orientations, each group represented by the letters ‘LGBT,’ or ‘LGBTQ2IA+’ (as used by the Landing) have distinctly different needs. The specificity of Lesbian Switchboards in relation to ‘Lesbian TikTok’ is of interest to me, as the unique needs of the ‘Woman Loving Woman’ (WLW) community are directly addressed through the app.
“Tiktok can be described as a platform where people can make videos of 15 [to 60] seconds, these videos then run in a loop until you choose to move to the next video” The organization of audiovisual media by geographic location, hashtag and interest provides users with a “for you page” (fyp) filled with content catered directly to them, resulting in the development of distinct subcultures within TikTok’s rapidly growing user-base. The Lesbian community is no different, having developed its own unique fashion, music, jokes, memes, and terminology.
TikTok has, in the words of Daisy Everingham, “become the surprising host to what is arguably one of the clearest examples of lesbian culture online today.”
In conducting this research, I first had to ask myself: why choose to investigate TikTok over other contemporary media technologies; in particular, social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram? In beginning my investigation, I came across a number of resources that noted the importance of TikTok to queer communities, with some going so far as to label the app “the soul of the LGBTQ internet.” Few of these sources, however, provide insight as to why the app has become so popular amongst it’s LGBTQ2IA+ user base. Here, I am going to underline some of the reasons Lesbian Switchboards cannot be compared to more ‘traditional’ social media sites, like Facebook and Instagram, and how this distinction further exemplifies the commonalities between ‘Lesbian TikTok’ and Lesbian Switchboards.
We know that for many queer people, coming out can result in discrimination, harassment, and in some extreme cases, even violence. For this reason, it was very important for Lesbian Switchboards to prioritize the anonymity of its callers while providing them access to queer resources and information. A call log from Thursday, January 18, 1973 reads: “young ♀ parents found out she’s a lesbian and are throwing her out of the house. She had to hang up.” Call logs like these demonstrate the real, and often scary reality of coming out. In their book ‘Information Activism,’ McKinney notes that “Anonymity (was) built into the design of hotlines.” In the contemporary age of digital surveillance, it is nearly impossible to achieve the same degree of anonymity enjoyed by Lesbians accessing the switchboard towards the end of the twentieth century.
TikTok, unlike Facebook or Instagram, is unique in that it provides users with the opportunity to remain anonymous while accessing the app. If a TikTok user wanted to access queer online spaces, they could do so by registering for the app using an email address that is not linked to their name, or any other sensitive and/or traceable information. Tiktok also does not display the names of users on the app, opting instead to organize users by account name. Facebook, on the other hand, has a vested interest in verifying the identity of its users.
Facebook’s authentic name policy insists that the name on a person’s profile “should be the name that [their] friends call [them] in everyday life,” going so far as to say that the “name should also appear on an ID or document” such as a “birth certificate, government-issued ID, or passport.” By visiting a user’s profile on Facebook, it is possible to view any pages that a person has liked, events they have attended, or groups they have joined. In order to gain access to queer online spaces, one has to do so with the knowledge that their movement through these online spaces could potentially be viewed by family members, friends, or employers. Facebook groups remain closed to prevent users from being harassed by those outside the community. This act of protection is a double-edged sword; one that bars closeted LGBTQ people from accessing resources or information through apps like Facebook or Instagram. In this context, one can imagine TikTok as “a version of Facebook able to fill your feed before [you’ve] friended a single person.” I am not claiming that TikTok does not collect data, or information about its users. I am claiming, however, that TikTok is similar to Lesbian Switchboards in its ability to connect queer users without outing them in the process.
This demonstrates a key distinction between the two media technologies. Women calling the Lesbian Switchboard in search of information had to, at the very minimum, be open to the possibility they could be queer. Mckinney notes exchanges with women who were “uncertain about [their] sexual identity and wanted to talk about [their] confusion.” Though some callers were extremely uncomfortable with their sexuality, they called the Lesbian hotline regardless.
These exchanges were sometimes noted in call logs as being “hostile.” TikTok users, on the other hand, do not even have to know they are gay to gain access to queer resources and content on the app. I investigated this idea further by conducting an interview with Emma, (they/she) a fourth-year photography student at Ryerson University in Toronto. Emma’s interests and skill set lie in creating various types of audiovisual content which they post across multiple social media platforms. The content they create includes photographs, artwork, videos, drawings, podcasts and most recently, TikToks. Emma has acquired quite a following on the app, with upwards of nearly 4 million likes on their videos. Their page is chock-full of hilarious and relatable LGBTQ content. In my interview with them, Emma recalls a conversation they had with their friend. “I was just talking with my friend, and I was like ‘wow, there are SO many Lesbians on TikTok,’ and she was like, ‘no there aren’t… and that’s when I began to think, you know, something was up.” Lesbian content and resources on Emma’s TikTok “for you page” prompted their exploration of their sexuality and gender.
“I came out earlier this spring. I feel really lucky. Every girl I’ve dated since then has been through TikTok. One day I was walking through the skate park in Toronto, and this girl actually recognized me from the app. Now we all hang out, and it’s really wonderful. I love TikTok, and without it, I never would have met my gay skater-girl gang.”
Other women use TikTok to connect themselves with the queer community in different ways. In an article about the organization, a switchboard staff member describes how she “used the Switchboard a couple of times before [she] joined the staff,” noting that she called, heard “Lesbian Switchboard,” and immediately hung up. “It was enough to hear that there was a living, breathing lesbian somewhere. I thought I was the only one.”
I conducted an interview with a friend, we’ll call her “D,” who identifies as a queer woman. She informed me that she joined TikTok to gain access to a community where she, as a feminine-presenting queer woman, saw herself represented.
“I was starved for authentic Lesbian representation. When I was younger, I would eagerly consume any and all Lesbian content accessible to me. The simple knowledge that there are other women like me brings me a great deal of comfort. It’s also nice to see representations of women that aren’t created by men or, like, catered to men. I think there’s the tendency for femme on femme relationships to be hypersexualized, so it’s nice to have access to an online community where there’s none of that.”
Language is yet another key component that unifies both Lesbian Switchboards and Lesbian TikTok. The audio element of TikTok helps give queer women the vocabulary to speak about themselves, and about issues affecting their communities. This includes addressing negative attitudes or stereotypes within the queer community, or within themselves. For example, the word “biphobia” which can be defined as “an aversion towards bisexual people” has allowed me to identify and challenge my own internalized biphobia which once “[took] the form of denial [of] bisexuality [as] a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual.”
“I feel really happy that young queers are learning terms like ‘compulsory heterosexuality,’ and ‘biphobia’ from a really young age. I think if I had a resource like TikTok that gave me those kinds of words, I would have better understood myself and had more compassion for myself.”
