ABSTRACT
This chapter centers Latinx TikTok, the robust subcategory of TikTok that sees Latinx artists and creators use the social media platform as a critical site to unpack, experiment with, and perform contemporary Latinidades. The chapter argues that Latinx TikTok mimics and remixes rasquachismo, the Chicanx theatre-making aesthetic in which artists make the most from the least. Given TikTok is a performance space that privileges a do-it-yourself (DIY) aesthetic, camp humor, low budgets, inclusivity, and the chance for anyone – and anything – to go viral, this chapter proposes that TikTok itself is rasquache. Even as TikTok’s platform politics attempt to suppress Latinx content creators in favor of elevating the work of white creators, Latinx TikTokers push against this culture of white supremacy, thus creating a space for radical inclusivity and digital Latinx world-making. This chapter documents these efforts while also theorizing how TikTok builds on a legacy of Latinx theatre-making that dates back to at least 1965 with El Teatro Campesino. As such, this chapter asks: what happens when rasquache theatre goes digital?
