Zoe Armstrong – MET

Motherhood on TikTok: A culture of support

The environment

As a millennial, I first joined TikTok as what we have learnt to be a “lurker.” I was interested to see what it was about but I was not comfortable to post my own content, nor even comment on videos that I enjoyed. I would toss out the occasional “like,” though I felt that it was a space largely dominated by younger generatons. Once I became a Mom (just under 10 months ago!), I found a side of TikTok that I really appreciated. There seemed to be a community of other Mothers sharing their own mothering experiences in really authentic ways. They discussed their experiences with taboo topics like post partum depression, anxiety and rage. The best part of this side of TikTok was the support for one another that was provided.

For this assignment, I chose to observe a comment thread on a TikTok video where a mother is seeking “unhinged” advice to help get her baby to sleep better. I chose this specific topic as it is typically somewhat controversial. Many share strong opinions on what is “right” and what is “wrong,” and I wanted to know in what ways this community would show up to not only support this mother seeking advice, but also show up  for one anothers differing opinions.

Observations

I wanted to dig into the “norms” of this community. Is there a right or wrong way to get your baby to sleep through the  night? How do individuals respond to ideas that are different from their own? Is there negotiation between members of this motherhood community on this topic? Because I had only experienced the positive side of this community, I was interested to see if a typically heated topic could bring out a different side of this community.

Key findings

The creator of this video encouraged viewers to comment and so that is precisely what they did. Many comments included more traditional advice such as encouraging different sleep training methods or trying co-sleeping. One pattern I observed was the creator continuing to reply to these comments sharing that she had already tried multiple sleep training methods as well as co-sleeping.  Though the creator continued to share this, viewers kept commenting the same thing. The  other pattern that emerged was that viewers would add to the comments of others who shared similar experiences. This created a sub-thread of sorts discussing different sleep strategies and advice.

Interpretation

There is a sort of “third culture,” as discussed by Hewling (2005), that exists in this online culture of motherhood. Although many of us bring our own cultural experiences to this space, we participate in this virtual community together, creating the norms and deciding on the “netiquette” (as discussed in section 3.2.5 of Unit 2). I learnt that in this space, many participants relied on emojis to complement their comments and to portray their emotions. This added a more multimodal element to the largely text-based thread of comments. Motherhood is emotional, and having the ability to further convey these emotions through the use of emojis helps when facial expressions cannot be used. I really came into this assignment assuming that this thread would include a lot of judgements. I was wrong however, and of the 557 comments on this thread, I only found two that seemed to come from a critical place. In section 3.3.4 of Unit 3, we learnt about how text was and still largely is the “primary medium for communication and identity expression.” This thread was an example of how, even on a platform like TikTok, where the primary form of sharing comes through video, there can still be so much said through text.

Reflection

There weren’t many challenges when it came to observing this thread. TikTok makes it quite easy to navigate comments, sub threads of comments and reply where one wants. Few tensions arose in this thread, which is what surprised me the most. I had assumed this subject would bring about tensions from individuals who had conversing opinions on this topic. Macfayden’s (2006) article came to mind when reflecting on this area. I often think people are quick to hide behind their username in online settings. This thread however, was a display of how mothers interact with one another in the offline setting too. They provide support and they bask in their shared experiences. The concept of our online identities being just as “real” as our offline identities that Macfayden (2006) discusses is apparent through this thread. I was pleasantly surprised to find that even through controversial topics, such as baby sleep, this community of mothers was able to engage genuinely and supportively.

References

Hewling, A. (2005). Culture in the online class: Using message analysis to look beyond nationality-based frames of reference. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 16. 

Macfadyen, L. P. (2006).
 Virtual ethnicity: The new digitization of place, body, language, and memory.
 Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education, 8 (1)