ABSTRACT
This chapter examines digital mass media and the circulation of popular screendance through the TikTok dance challenge. The rise in popularity of visual social media platforms has led to a renewed focus on the sharing and consumption of the popular screendance body, resulting in dance challenges that encourage majority Gen-Z users to create, replicate, and share simple gestural dance routines. These challenges hold complexity in their exploration of intersectional identities, as well as the impact of the mass digital replication and representation of bodies in motion. Through a screendance analysis drawing upon critical race and gender theory, this chapter examines three TikTok dance challenges: #AllAboutCake, #DistanceDance, and #Renegadechallenge. Study reveals the duality of individual expression vs. the creation of a digital dance community, with a predominant focus on the increased visibility of white tween girlhood and the monetization of these identities. Additionally, these challenges expose uneven shifts in power, with a focus on the cultural appropriation of the creations of young Black choreographers. Using a dual notion of challenge, this chapter encourages a richer investigation of these forms to increase visibility of diverse voices on the platform and to understand the cultural and historical references that sit behind these micro-choreographies.
