Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Patriarchy Becomes That Girl: Tiktok And The Mediatization Of Hegemonic Femininity, Irene Molinar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

With the advancement of digital and social media come innovative forms of self-expression and creativity. This M.A. thesis manuscript studies how content creators on the fast-growing social media platform, TikTok, arrange aesthetics, trends, and discourse to promote self-care through hegemonic beauty and wellness standards while empowering themselves through postfeminist sensibilities. Much like early beauty standards set by social media applications such as Instagram, TikTok (along with its algorithm and users) is (re)defining femininity by asking women to look at reexamine their appearance and mentalities to better themselves internally for the sake of self-improvement. Trends such as That Girl illustrate lifestyles …