The endless project of the feminine self: ‘locked-down femininity’ and becoming #ThatGirl on TikTok

Abstract

Encouraged by the solitude of COVID-19 lockdowns, the social media platform TikTok gained prominent cultural attention. This study capitalises on the increased visibility of people online and focuses on how women utilise the platform as a space for self-transformation during crisis. From a critical post-feminist and neoliberal perspective, this study undertakes a combined content analysis and digital ethnography of “ideal” femininity as articulated on the #ThatGirl hashtag on TikTok. Three patterns are revealed in the data. Firstly, isolation appears as not only a by-product of lockdown but a space where the full potential of ideal femininity is realised. Following this, wellness and consumption materialise as the broad aim of #ThatGirl, where the body emerges as a site of protection against disease and place to exert control against an uncontrollable cultural landscape. Ultimately, lockdowns facilitated a certain femininity where women negotiated protection, health, and survival in times of crisis by a return to the body as armour and individualisation as a moral ethic of safety. These ideals are entrenched within both hegemonic and critical expressions on TikTok, as feminist resistance in the form of feedback occurs in tandem with the discourse it attempts to challenge.