TikTok's Trending Racism

As schools around the world have closed, many social media users have turned to the relatively new platform called TikTok. TikTok is known for it's short videos and challenges that quickly surface on all other social media platforms. TikTok unfortunately does not often monitor user content, which has led to a new racist trend #HowsMyForm? These videos and memes exist solely on the backs of mostly racial, but also sexist stereotypes and imagery. The videos usually start off with the user saying something to catch attention, then saying "now that all my (a race, ethnic group or gender) is here", and then "hows my form" with the background being some sort of racist scene that they have created. For example: 

 

Although this may have started off as a small joke by a few teenagers who believed it would be harmless, this # now has now been used on over 100K videos and has over 36.5 million views. Without realizing it, these teens are completely unaware to the kind of racist stereotypes that they are preserving through these videos. Some students have even faced expulsion over these clips, but nothing can be done to stop them from bounding around on the internet, and to stop the creation of more. Stereotypes like these can make individuals lives very difficult, and many minorities often spend their lives trying to prove them false. Making the stereotypes that can change the way that you respect an individual into a joke harms any progress that individuals and these communities have made. Not only are these videos racist, and not funny, but they are harmful to a lot of people and reduces their real world issues to nothing more than a joke for likes and laughs. Using the color of a persons skin and the stereotype that follows that for humor is unacceptable. 

Course Reference: Gans, H.J. (2014). "Race as class." In Andersen, M. L., & Collins, P. H. (2019). Race, class, and gender: intersections and inequalities (pp 111-117). Boston, MA: Cengage.