TikTok and Igbo Female Images in Nigeria: Feminist Vocabularies for Social Consciousness

Abstract

TikTok as a social media platform discusses popular culture subjects. It is a device intended for entertainment, commodification, affective paradigms and digital activism. The resurgence of disillusionment characterized by Post Covid19 issues, unemployment, quest for fame/money and gender-based violence in Nigeria between 2021-2022, has resulted to multimedia display promoting female consciousness and domination devoid of Igbo traditional cultural decorum. Despite varied criticisms of TikTok’s influence on audiences’ psyche (Jiang Qiaolei, 2019), I argue that feminist vocabularies employed by most content creators of Igbo origin in Nigeria are very effectual and mostly non-indigenized in patterns of expression, an argument fit for cultural criticism in the wake of hybridism. This is achieved through data assembled from TikTok app with snapshots of content creators that display a significant support for “sisterhood” targeted towards female energy and liberation. The algorithmic analysis of themes is achieved through conceived data mining, locative investigation and thick mapping of linked ideological perspectives. The selected images, video/audio and texts are laced with feminist consciousness— an assertive female tool for digital affect and activism (Sampson et al, 2018). Relevant interpretational approaches are discussed to provide a holistic background of feminist ideologies inherent in the selected audio-visual clips.