Performative elements in Tiktok poetry performances

Abstract

The rapid development of social media platforms has resulted to multimodal performance of poetry, in which verbal, visual and technological tools are combined. Among these multimedia platforms, TikTok has become a significant platform for poets to harness a range of digital affordances to aid in their poetic expression and engagement with audiences. Although some poetry has become popular on TikTok, there has been little scholarly research on the performative aspects that inform these digital productions. This paper explores the performative components used in TikTok poetry productions and how it aids in the creation of meaning in digital contexts. Digital Performance Theory and the principle of multimodality is used to guide the analysis. The research method used in the study was qualitative with descriptive research type. For the analysis, four poets were purposively selected from a population of ten popular poets on TikTok to give a sample of sixteen poems. Content analysis was used to gather data and thematic analysis was conducted. The results indicate that TikTok poets use a variety of performative techniques, including visual techniques (such as visual cues, projection aesthetics and kinesthetic typography), digital techniques (such as pacing and digitally augmented sound), and interactive techniques (such as liveality). By integrating these multimodal elements, the work enriches the expression and adds to the thematic messages, while attracting the attention of the audience and turning poetry into a digital performance. The study concludes that TikTok has extended the expressive potential of oral poetry by making use of the technological affordances within the process of poetic performance, thus establishing multimodality as being a defining feature of present-day digital poetry.