GangTok: Street gang content, culture, and roleplay on TikTok

Abstract

Research on street gangs’ digital presence has focused on networked platforms like Facebook where visibility reflects interpersonal ties. Newer, short-form, algorithmically curated environments such as TikTok reorder these dynamics by privileging performance, spectacle, and trend alignment. This mixed-methods study analyzes 397 publicly available TikTok videos associated with Latino gangs in Chicago to address four key questions: the genres of gang-related content present, the extent to which these genres circulate, how creators perform and negotiate authenticity, and how platform-specific performances complicate interpretations of offline identity. We identify three genres: (1) place-based memorials that document gang geography; (2) traditional gangbanging performances that assert identity and provoke rivals; and (3) role-playing simulations of gang life in Grand Theft Auto V. These genres circulate unevenly: users tend to post within a single niche, and place-based and traditional gangbanging content receive disproportionately higher engagement than role-playing videos. Across genres, credibility is both central and contested, as symbolic fluency can substitute for verifiable street ties. We use “GangTok” as a descriptive shorthand for this ecology, where authentic, adjacent, and imitative performances coexist. Findings reveal how TikTok amplifies familiar gang repertoires while blurring insider–outsider boundaries, underscoring the limitations of content-level inference in algorithmically mediated publics.