Neoliberalsm and TikTok's Day in the Life Trend  
   
  
by  
Trevor Milos Kartalija 
 
 
A thesis accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the   
requirements for the degree of  
Master of Science   
in Communication Media Studies 
 
Thesis Committee:  
Whitney Philips, Chair  
Dayna Chatman, Member  
Courtney Cox, Member  
 
University of Oregon  
 
2024 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© 2024 Trevor Milos Kartalija  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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THESIS ABSTRACT 
Trevor Milos Kartalija 
 
Master of Science in Communication Media Studies 
Title: Neoliberalism and TikTok’s Day in the Life Trend 
TikTok’s Day in the Life (DITL) trend, in which users show a typical day in their work 
life, shows how neoliberal ideology is reflected through social media content as users’ 
performances in this trend depict neoliberalism in various ways. For my analysis I deployed a 
qualitative content analysis and a coding schema to examine 150 TikTok videos for depictions of 
neoliberal ideology. Additionally, I used Jack Zipe’s folklore concept of conservatism and 
dynamism to identify persisting elements of neoliberalism that are ingrained into the trend itself 
as well as how neoliberalism was presented and performed by the video creators in various ways 
throughout the trend. This thesis affirmed that neoliberal ideology united the Day in the Life 
trend, despite its different variations, adding to literature surrounding platformization, memetics, 
conservatism and dynamism, and neoliberalism. By translating important aspects of 
neoliberalism into observable behaviors and actions, this thesis actualizes core tenets of 
neoliberalism. Converting these abstract elements of neoliberalism into observable behaviors and 
actions is important when understanding how neoliberalism manifests itself in the real world. 
This gives us clear, tangible examples of what to look for when describing neoliberalism, a 
necessary step in critiquing neoliberal ideals such as the transformation of the self into a brand 
and constant self-improvement in order to grow that brand.  
 
 
  
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
I am incredibly grateful to my committee for supporting me and guiding me through this 
thesis. You all supported me from the beginning when this project looked completely different. 
You were all an integral part in the completion of this thesis.  
I would also like to express the utmost gratitude toward my advisor Dr. Whitney Phillips 
who was an immense help throughout this whole process. I truly owe her for the countless 
meetings, revisions, patience, and constant support throughout the many different iterations and 
stages of this project. Were it not for her there would be no thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. 
Dayna Chatman for her patience, flexibility, and support throughout this project. She provided 
incredible feedback and identified important areas of improvement that helped make this a 
complete thesis. I also must thank Dr. Courtney Cox for her support, encouragement, and 
guidance. Her guidance was instrumental in identifying a topic for this project and her words of 
encouragement helped to motivate me. 
Additionally, I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Julie Newton for her undying support 
and guidance throughout this thesis. Julie provided assistance and guidance throughout the thesis 
process that helped support and keep this project on track. 
And to my family for always supporting me through everything, their words of 
encouragement, and willingness to listen to me talk about my interests.  
 
 
  
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Chapter Page 
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................3 
Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................4 
List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................7 
List of Appendices ...........................................................................................................................8 
I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................9 
II. Literature Review ......................................................................................................................15 
Platformization: Affordances and Logics ............................................................................... 16 
Platformization and TikTok .............................................................................................. 17 
Memetics ................................................................................................................................. 18 
Conservatism and Dynamism ................................................................................................. 20 
Neoliberalism .......................................................................................................................... 21 
Self-Branding and Neoliberalism ..................................................................................... 24 
III. Method .....................................................................................................................................26 
Sampling and Data Collection ................................................................................................ 27 
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Qualitative Analysis ................................................................................................................ 28 
Codes and Analysis ................................................................................................................. 29 
IV. Results......................................................................................................................................32 
Conservatism and Dynamism Across Codes .......................................................................... 35 
Valorization of Working Conditions ...................................................................................... 37 
Conversion of Leisure Time to Productive Time ................................................................... 42 
Competition/Marketization ..................................................................................................... 46 
Promotion of Brands ............................................................................................................... 50 
Positioning Oneself as a Brand ............................................................................................... 54 
Anomalies ............................................................................................................................... 59 
V. Discussion and Conclusion .......................................................................................................61 
Appendices .....................................................................................................................................64 
Appendix A: Demographics Charts ........................................................................................ 65 
Appendix B: Captions, Hashtags, and Handles ...................................................................... 71 
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................73 
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List of Tables 
1. Number of Videos Coded by Variation .................................................................................... 32 
2. Percent of Valorization of Working Conditions by Variation .................................................. 37 
3. Percent of Conversion of Leisure Time to Productive Time by Variation ............................... 42 
4. Percent of Competition/Marketization by Variation................................................................. 46 
5. Percent of Promotion of Brands by Variation ........................................................................... 50 
6. Percent of Positioning Oneself as a Brand by Variation ........................................................... 54 
7. Percent of Anomalies by Variation ........................................................................................... 59 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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List of Appendices 
Appendix A: Demographics Charts ...............................................................................................65 
Appendix B: Captions, Hashtags, and Handles .............................................................................71 
 
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CHAPTER 1 
INTRODUCTION 
The social media app TikTok was launched in the US in 2018 and has quickly become 
one of the most popular social media apps—growing from 133 million users in 2018 to over 1 
billion users in 2023 (Iqbal, 2024; Zulli & Zulli, 2022). Social media (including TikTok) have 
received criticisms for algorithms promoting polarizing and conspiratorial content (Fisher, 2022; 
Klepper, 2024), concerns over citizen surveillance by government employees (Macleod, 2022), 
and being linked to misdiagnosing mental health conditions such as ADHD (Yeung et al., 2022). 
Beyond issues concerning controversial content, surveillance issues, and mental health, social 
media has the ability to convey and disseminate ideology without users being aware that 
ideology, “process of production of practices and sense the function of which is the production 
and legitimation of power relations” (Garcia & Sanchez, 2016). Apart from social media, all 
aspects of culture have the ability to disseminate ideology. However, what makes dissemination 
of ideology so effective on social media is that ideological messages can be ingrained into the 
content, with these ideological messages becoming even more effective when adding in the 
factor of enjoyment, which makes ideology less apparent, more powerful, and seemingly an 
inherent truth (Engesser et al., 2017; Dey & Lehner, 2017; Gbadegesin, 2020; Gitlin, 1979; 
Schmitt et al., 2022). Through taking pleasure in these depictions of ideology, subjects become 
less likely to question the ideology at play as subjects derive a sense of enjoyment from the 
ideology. 
Of all the ideologies communicated by social media, neoliberalism is an ideology that is 
heavily ingrained into the content. Neoliberal ideology is a system of beliefs and ideas that “sees 
competition as the defining characteristic of human relations” (Monbiot, 2016), classifies 
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individuals as consumers, and encourages the marketization of all aspects of human life (Dean, 
2008; Dean, 2023). As social media platforms are inextricably linked to the attention economy 
(an economic approach that considers human attention a commodity/source of monetization) 
(Kane, 2019) and motivated by profit, the content of these platforms reflect the capitalist 
ideology of the sites themselves. That is, the content reflects the owners of the platform’s desire 
to encourage monetization and consumption, thus benefiting these stakeholders through enabling 
them to profit off users’ attention. TikTok specifically relies on creating value through their 
prosumer (portmanteau for producer and consumer) model wherein viewers act as both 
consumers and producers of content (Flisfeder, 2015; Vizcaíno-Verdú et al., 2023). Through this 
business model, users create content (often for free unless they garner enough followers) for 
TikTok to profit from by selling these same users’ data to advertisers (Flisfeder, 2015). Thus, as 
the platform’s goal is to secure a profit from viewers’ attention, certain content reflects this 
neoliberal need to marketize human life. As social media are neoliberal in orientation, I chose to 
focus on TikTok’s “Day in the Life” trend (DITL) that is an especially pure encapsulation of 
neoliberal ideology. This trend embodies the dynamics of neoliberalism, and it is through this 
Day in the Life trend that we can see an example of how neoliberal ideology is transmitted—by 
using the trend to glorify the conditions and tenets of neoliberalism.  
This popular trend among TikTok users involves creating “Day in the Life” videos of 
themselves which feature their day-to-day activities at their jobs. The trend follows a general 
template that can be altered by users to reflect creative and novel aspects of their own lives. The 
template of the DITL trend consists of users filming a “typical day in their life” focused on the 
occupation they have often explicitly identified which can be seen as a form of variation of the 
greater DITL trend. These variations include occupations and identifiers such as “Corporate 
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DITL”, “Day in the Life of a Nurse”, “A Day in My Life as an Entrepreneur in Miami”, etc. 
These videos normally indicate the user’s occupation and the video follows along a typical “day 
in the life” of the user going to work, school, creating social media content, etc. depending on the 
identifier of the trend. The videos center on the user’s activities, often feature a voiceover 
narrating their day, music, or both.  
These videos can be defined as a meme, or spreadable media that is reliant on user 
participation, transmission, and adaptation (Milner, 2016). Defining this trend as a meme helps 
describe what this TikTok trend is, how it is adapted, and how it is shared amongst users. This 
specific trend was chosen as I contend that it specifically communicates strong representations of 
neoliberalism as the trend focuses on the user’s occupation, thus situating the individual as a 
vehicle for capital rather than focusing on other, personal aspects of the individual. Through 
users’ performances of their day to day lives, they depict certain aspects of neoliberalism in a 
way that other trends may not through an intimate view into these users’ lives. Through 
identifying the way neoliberalism is represented in these videos, it allows me to actualize that 
which is usually more intangible. 
Representations of neoliberalism such as idealized working conditions of social media 
influencers that do not show the realities of their labor, videos of hyper-competitive 
entrepreneurs that encourage others to spend all their time working, and the endless onslaught of 
products being marketed to individuals through sponsored ads and influencer marketing are but 
just a few examples that can be found in social media content. These behaviors and themes found 
in TikTok’s DITL trend encapsulate how neoliberal ideology is ingrained into TikTok and its 
content through performances of the ideology. I have chosen to demonstrate how neoliberalism 
is performed by users through the content they post, which helps to perpetuate the same ideology 
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upon which the site is based. Although we do not know the intention of these content creators 
and users when creating and sharing social media content that maintains neoliberal ideology, the 
ideology is often implicitly communicated through the performances of these users. This is all 
the more reason to call attention to how this ideology manifests for us to better understand what 
users are consuming and creating, as well as how ideology moves through them. While other 
scholars have examined the relationship between social media and ideology, none have 
connected neoliberalism and TikTok. I intend to fill this gap in the research through my 
contention that TikTok promotes neoliberal ideology through the DITL trend. This thesis 
underscores the way neoliberal ideology is implicitly communicated through subtle 
demonstrations of different tenets of the ideology as well as subjects’ unawareness that they are 
living in a neoliberal society—a key feature of ideology. Additionally, this thesis concretely 
demonstrates ideas that are typically discussed in abstract terms. By translating important aspects 
of neoliberalism into observable behaviors and actions, this thesis actualizes core tenets of 
neoliberalism. Converting these abstract elements of neoliberalism into observable behaviors and 
actions is important when understanding how neoliberalism manifests itself in the real world. 
This gives us clear, tangible examples of what to look for when describing neoliberalism. 
Neoliberalism was specifically chosen as I contend that tenets of this ideology are 
presented as nothing more than quotidian life and are exhibited throughout this trend as if they 
are the norm. It is important to interrogate this TikTok trend in order to understand how these 
videos reify this ideology through users’ behaviors and themes found in the content. Reification 
of this ideology treats neoliberalism as the only viable economic reality, leading subjects of this 
ideology to believe that we should continue to marketize every aspect of our lives and prioritize 
profit over working conditions like pay and hours spent working. This marketization of life is 
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detrimental as it “contributors to human exploitation” (Brown, 2015, p.29), reduces every aspect 
of life to something that should be profited off, and encourages individuals to consider the profit 
motive as the most important aspect of one’s life. As these DITL videos are spread to the 
creators’ followers, and perhaps even shared by these followers to their peers, what is at stake 
here is neoliberalism becoming further ingrained as the norm. Investigating this trend matters as 
the constant creation and spread of these videos and the reification of neoliberal ideology may 
lead viewers to believe that that they must be in a constant pursuit of the neoliberal ideals shown 
to them on TikTok. Scholar Wendy Brown discusses the implications of living in a neoliberal 
society, which leads individuals to “comport themselves in ways that maximize their capital 
value in the present and enhance their future value…through practices of entrepreneurialism, 
self-investment, and/or attracting actors” (Brown, 2015, p.22). Here we see the endless pursuit of 
profitability and the “financialization of everything” become the priority while other facets of 
life and important issues, such as community or workers’ rights, fall to the wayside (Brown, 
2015, p.28). 
Beyond just understanding that neoliberalism is present in this trend, it is also important 
to understand the various ways neoliberalism is expressed, as the casual glorification and 
legitimization of neoliberal ideology may reinforce the ideas that there is no alternative to 
neoliberalism and that we should continue to enjoy our labor conditions rather than work towards 
better opportunities. Neoliberalism specifically encourages this enjoyment of labor as it benefits 
from leading its subjects to derive pleasure from consumption and believe that everyone can 
become a winner, thus leading individuals to avoid criticizing the consequences of neoliberalism 
as it is framed as something to be enjoyed (Dean, 2008). As TikTok users are fed these 
depictions of labor as something to be delighted in, it further reinforces the legitimacy of 
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neoliberalism. Notions of media influencing users’ perspectives can be found in cultivation 
theory research. Research regarding cultivation theory, which states that “the repeated and 
extensive use of mass media will entice audiences to absorb the broadcast information into their 
worldview”, has shown that social media use contributed to eating disorders due to the distortion 
of users’ perceptions as well as influencing people’s perceptions of natural disasters, indicating 
social media’s ability to influence users’ perspectives (Cheng et al., 2016; Stein et al., 2021). 
Thus, we see how the DITL trend may distort users’ perceptions of working conditions under 
neoliberalism. While perhaps users do not need to completely abstain from social media, I do 
believe it is important to be aware of the ideology that is being communicated, to better examine 
the content we are being shown, and understand how it may contribute to the perpetuation of 
neoliberal ideology.    
Given the specific setup of TikTok and the centrality of neoliberalism in the DITL trend, 
I expected as a result to find direct material performances of neoliberalism in all the videos I 
examined. And, as I will elaborate on in the methods sections, I found exactly that; all videos 
were coded for these markers. It is the conservative elements, a term derived from folkloric study 
origins that refers to elements inherent to the tradition of the trend, that unify the trend, even as 
there are some dynamic, another term derived from folkloric study origins that refers to elements 
that manifest in a variety of ways, elements in this trend as well.  
In summation, through my analysis I intended to show how neoliberalism is performed 
by TikTok users. Furthermore, I aimed to make visible that which is normally not seen or taken 
for the norm for those viewing these TikToks. To understand how neoliberal ideology expresses 
itself in the DITL trend, I examined these videos for markers of neoliberalism such as 
valorization of working conditions, the conversion of leisure time to productive time, 
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competition and marketization, promotion of brands, and positioning oneself as a brand. Through 
analyzing markers of neoliberalism and themes found in these videos, I explored how the DITL 
TikTok trend communicates a neoliberal ideology.  
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CHAPTER 2 
LITERATURE REVIEW 
The research used in this thesis draws on areas of literature examining platformization, 
memetics, conservatism and dynamism, and neoliberalism. Through this thesis I intend to add 
novel insight to each area. This project will add to platformization literature through 
understanding how TikTok’s affordances, algorithm, and logic influence content creation norms 
to promote a neoliberal ideology in the DITL TikTok trend. I intend to add to the literature 
surrounding memes by arguing how neoliberal ideology is communicated via norms and values 
found in memes despite taking on different forms through reappropriation. I will add to literature 
surrounding conservatism and dynamism through applying this concept to TikTok to show the 
potential of dynamism to shape different versions of the DITL trend and how, through 
conservatism, these versions are united by neoliberalism. Finally, this thesis will add to literature 
regarding neoliberalism by demonstrating how TikTok trends promote, glorify, or challenge the 
hegemonic ideals of neoliberalism. Understanding how neoliberalism is communicated via the 
DITL trend is important as these validations of neoliberalism serve to reify the idea that 
neoliberalism is the only viable system and that we should enjoy working under neoliberal 
working conditions. 
Platformization: Affordances and Logics 
Platformization literature focuses on several themes—the first being how users’ 
behaviors are influenced by the structure of the platform. Platforms can be understood through 
their structures and affordances, or “perceived range of possible actions linked to platform 
features” (Hase et al., 2022). Platformization is defined as “the penetration of economic, 
governmental, and infrastructural extension of digital platforms into the web and app 
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ecosystems, fundamentally affecting the operations of the cultural industries” (Nieborg & Poell, 
2018, p.4,276). Work on the influence of platform structures is closely related to affordance 
literature, which foregrounds how user behavior is impacted by the tools made available by the 
platforms (Bosma, 2022; Hase et al., 2022). Studies on affordances look at everything from 
“platformization of routines” due to relying on “affordances for interacting with audiences” and 
consumption practices that are influenced by affordances, to how platform tools affect self-
branding practices (Caliandro et al., 2024; Cotter, 2019; Duffy et al., 2017; Dvir-Gvirsman & 
Tsuriel, 2022).  
Platformization literature also investigates how user behaviors are shaped by the logics, 
or “interplay between different mechanics inherent to digital platforms”, and guidelines of the 
platform (Andersson Schwarz, 2017, p.378). Chan et al. (2023) and Arriagada and Ibáñez (2020) 
focus on platform guidelines and rules that guide the logic of the platform. Zeng and Kaye 
(2022) foreground what happens when those rules aren’t followed—such as content being 
flagged, or users being banned. Arriagada and Ibáñez (2020) also consider how platform logics 
encourage users to share more content, modify strategies to successfully make their content 
visible, and adhere to the algorithm through adopting different content creation and promotion 
strategies. 
Platformization and TikTok 
Discussions of platformization are, of course, tethered to the platforms themselves; the 
kind of conclusions Arriagada and Ibáñez draw about Instagram cannot be directly applied to 
other platforms, and vice versa. That is why it is so important to consider the platform logics—
structures, affordances, and guidelines—of the platform being examined. This thesis specifically 
focuses on TikTok, a “mobile video sharing social media application” that is mainly used to film 
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and share videos and offers the ability “to apply numerous video and music filters and effects as 
well as to create special kinds of cooperative videos, i.e. duets and reactions” (Shutsko, 2020, 
p.109). Bhandari and Bimo (2022) focus on TikTok’s algorithm and how it influences one’s 
representation of oneself on social media. Schellewald (2023) discusses TikTok’s affordances 
and the importance of the algorithm in personalizing content. Finally, Chan et al. discuss the 
evolution of TikTok’s “Community Guidelines” and its relation to “platform values” (Chan et 
al., 2023, p.2).  
RQ1: How do TikTok’s affordances, algorithm, and logic influence content creation norms to 
promote neoliberal ideology in the DITL TikTok trend? 
Memetics 
The main figure central to meme-related conversations is Richard Dawkins, who defined 
a meme as “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation” (Dawkins, 1989, p.192). He 
gives a few examples, such as “ideas, catch-phrases, [and] cloth[ing] fashions” and emphasizes 
how these memes jump from “brain to brain” in the process of imitation, thus leading to the 
spread of these ideas (Dawkins, 1989, p.192). Since publishing his foundational work on the 
subject, Dawkins’ concept of memes has been criticized for his notion that culture spreads like a 
virus—rather his detractors insist that culture does not spread passively in the way that this use 
of the word viral implies (Milner, 2016; Percival, 1994). Despite this criticism, the concept of 
memes has spread to many different disciplines such as neuroscience (Di Leva, 2008; 
McNamara, 2011), semiotics (Fomin, 2019; Grundlingh, 2018), and psychology (Heath et al., 
2001; Myrick et al., 2022). Similarly, this criticism inspired Ryan Milner’s idea of memetic 
logics, a term that refers to culturally transmittable media that is dependent on “collective 
creation, circulation, and transformation” and can be considered texts that encourage 
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“participation by reappropriation, by balancing a fixed premise with novel expression”, which 
focus more on the participatory qualities of memes rather than Dawkins’ quasi-biological, 
deterministic concept of the meme (Milner, 2016, p. 14). 
Memetics often overlap with conversations about platforms and affordances when 
examining how collective creation, circulation, and transformation of memetic media are 
influenced by platforms. In his discussion of memetic logics, Milner departs from Dawkins' idea 
of memes as deterministic, instead focusing on Dawkins’ idea of memes as cultural transmitters 
and connecting them with the idea of not only texts that rely on ideas of collective creation, 
circulation, and transformation, but the idea that memes can be seen as “a set of social practices” 
that endure (Milner, 2016, p. 3). Milner’s idea relates back to platformization through the way 
that social media platforms encourage these memetic ideas of collective creation, circulation, and 
transformation through a platform’s affordances and logics.  
Other scholars use the term memetic logic when discussing the relationship between 
memetics and platforms. Both Caliandro and Anselmi (2021) and Schöps et al. (2023) argue that 
platforms and affordances encourage memetic logic through both the platform’s infrastructure 
and affordances by encouraging a standardized template for content creation. Similarly, Zulli and 
Zulli use the term “platform logic” rather than memetic logic (in this case meaning the same 
thing) to argue that TikTok’s structure, features, and norms of production encourage imitation 
and replication thus creating networks formed through “processes of imitation and replication” 
(Zulli & Zulli, 2022, p.1,873). Nicoll and Nansen (2018) further the conversation around 
replicability by positing that content production of YouTube unboxing videos is shaped via genre 
norms of production and performance. Research in this area also examine how affordances affect 
the creation of memes themselves as Linor Shifman (2014) discusses the importance of 
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affordances in influencing photograph-based memes while Kate Miltner and Tim Highfield 
(2017) discuss how different platforms influence GIF memes in different ways depending on 
their affordances. These works extend the concept of memetics to the level of the platform to 
demonstrate how platforms themselves can encourage memetic processes. 
RQ2: How is neoliberal ideology communicated via norms and values found in this trend despite 
taking on different forms through reappropriation?  
Conservatism and Dynamism 
 As literature surrounding memes and memetic logics are integral in highlighting ideas of 
replication and standardized content found on social media, literature on the twin laws of 
conservatism and dynamism are essential to understanding how media evolve over time. These 
twin laws are essential to investigate how, through dynamism, traditions evolve and diverge and, 
through conservatism, how traditions maintain their essence. Milner and Phillips use folklorist 
Barre Toelken’s twin laws of conservatism and dynamism to help describe “the transformation 
of familiar expressions as they spread through new moments and audiences” (2016, p.24). In 
folklore, conservative elements are viewed as unchanging; they retain “certain information, 
beliefs, styles, customs, and the like, and the attempted passing of those materials, essentially 
intact, through time and space” (Toelken, 1979, p.39). These elements “are not to be tampered 
with or rearranged” as they are essential to the tradition (Toelken, 1979, p.40). Dynamic 
elements of folklore are those that change over time and allow individuals to “alter features, 
contents, meanings, styles, performance, and usage” (Toelken, 1979, p.40). Dynamic elements 
promote perpetual change in the tradition, despite possible attempts to keep these elements from 
changing (Toelken, 1979).  
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 The concept of conservatism and dynamism is mainly found in folklore studies. It has 
been especially insightful when discussing the evolution of how traditions are passed down and 
repurposed in later iterations. Through an examination of fairy tales, folk tales, and their 
inextricable link with politics, Jack Zipes explains how despite societal changes and changes in 
class dynamics that “penetrated the folktale”, the essence of the folktale resisted transformation 
despite later adaptations (Zipes, 1975, p. 121). Sarah Wilde’s examination of contemporary 
Disney princesses adds to this through articulating how traditional princess narratives are 
reappropriated for a new audience in a way that maintains the inherent traditional qualities of the 
princess story but reshapes different aspects through princesses becoming more “complex 
characters with a variety of traits” (Wilde, 2014, p.147). In his study investigating the 
performances of traditional and folkloric dance, Matthew Krystal expands upon evolving 
traditions using conservatism and dynamism to argue that folkloric dance “helps performers and 
audiences create and share meaningful notions of heritage, and, in turn, identity” (Krystal, 2007, 
pg.75). 
RQ3: How does dynamism shape different versions of the DITL trend? 
RQ4: How does conservatism unite these different versions under the umbrella of neoliberalism?  
Neoliberalism 
 Research on neoliberalism foregrounds what exactly the ideology is. Neoliberalism refers 
to both an economic theory as well as an ideology derived from this theory. It is a “paradigm for 
economic theory and policy-making” heavily influenced by economists Milton Friedman and 
Freidrich Hayek after being heralded in by President Reagan in the United States and Margaret 
Thatcher in the United Kingdom (Metcalf, 2017; Thorsen, 2010, p.8). Neoliberalism has been the 
basis for US economic policies and regulations and emphasizes tenets of a capitalist free market, 
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laissez-faire approach rather than government intervention in economics (Thorsen, 2010). 
However, neoliberalism is far more than just an economic theory. According to scholar Jodi 
Dean it “is a philosophy viewing market exchange as a guide for all human action” that redefines 
life in “accordance with economic criteria” and “holds that human freedom is best achieved 
through the operation of markets” (Dean, 2008, p.48). Scholar Jonathan Dean, who draws much 
from French philosopher Michel Foucault, adds to this by arguing that neoliberalism is far more 
than an economic theory, it “extends logics of competition and marketization into almost all 
domains of human life”, encouraging “the optimization of one’s human capital” in every aspect 
of one’s life (Dean, 2023, p.8). While neoliberalism may have been implemented as an economic 
theory, it extends into the domain of ideology and the metaphysical. Beyond influencing market 
relations, neoliberalism influences various aspects of life including behaviors, identity, and 
relationships.  
Although neoliberalism is a pervasive, hegemonic ideology, it is rare to find people 
explicitly promoting or even acknowledging the existence of the ideology itself. Instead, tenets 
of this ideology are communicated implicitly through promotion of different aspects of the 
ideology, such as marketization of human life, rather than explicitly stating that a neoliberal 
approach should be followed. In general, it is rare for individuals to be aware that they are living 
under neoliberalism. This lack of awareness is characteristic of ideology.  
Slovenian scholar Slavoj Zizek contributes to contemporary discourse surrounding 
ideology by “arguing that ideology refers not to what people know, but to the belief underlying 
and animating people’s actions” (Dean, 2008, p.51). According to Zizek, ideology is an 
omnipresent, all-encompassing system that goes beyond traditional perception and 
understanding, forming our perceptions of reality without the subjects even being aware that it is 
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there at all (Zizek, 1989). Schmitt et al. (2022) describe the implications of a ubiquitous ideology 
by describing how the dominant ideology masks exploitation of the non-dominant class and 
functions to keep the oppressed from realizing their oppression. That is, those living under the 
hegemonic ideology are often unaware this ideology even exists, often until they intentionally 
look for this ideology or become negatively affected by it. 
 Research on neoliberalism highlights the implications of living under a neoliberal 
ideology. In reviewing literature surrounding neoliberalism, themes have emerged regarding 
social media’s manipulation of our perspectives, commodification of religions and subcultures, 
and advertisements reflecting aspects of neoliberalism. In Matthew Flisfeder’s (2021) book 
Algorithmic Desire, he investigates how social media acts as a reflection of neoliberal ideology 
through its antisocial effects, endorsement of entrepreneurialism and a hedonistic lifestyle, and 
legitimizes itself through creation and distribution of content. Chris Miller explores how 
neoliberal ideology is present in “WitchTok”, a genre of TikTok dedicated to witchcraft, through 
users’ promotion of self-brands, businesses, and commodification of connections to nature 
(Miller, 2022, p.1). Kanai and Gill (2020) investigate how radical politics, like feminist or 
LGBTQ movements, are co-opted by corporate advertising and reappropriated in a neoliberal 
fashion, thus dismantling their subversive power and contributing to upholding the status quo.  
As these neoliberal ideals are so pervasive through media and everyday life, they are 
viewed as constructing certain identities in its subjects. Jodi Dean conceptualizes neoliberalism 
as an ideology that uses identity as a means of control by reconstructing individuals’ identities as 
either consumer or criminal and demands its subjects to enjoy and consume, arguing that “people 
have little opportunity to do other than consume” (Dean, 2008, p.64). Orgad and De Benedictis 
also contribute to conversations of identity as a means of control by examining how UK media 
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constructs the stay-at-home-mom as a “neoliberal post-feminist subject”, thus further alienating 
middle and working class mothers (Orgad & De Benedictis, 2015, p.419). Shawn Van 
Valkenburgh investigates how neoliberal ideology is present in an online forum for misogynistic 
men through the way users construct women as commodities and integrate neoliberal ideology 
into their “seduction strategies” (Van Valkenburgh, 2021, p.99). Catherine Archer also invokes 
the identity of the mother in neoliberalism through examining how bloggers are exploited by 
“neoliberal market forces” and notions of entrepreneurialism, leading to poor working conditions 
and prioritization of the work life (Archer, 2019, p.161).  
Self-Branding and Neoliberalism 
As neoliberal ideology permeates all aspects of life, it influences the way social media 
users portray themselves. The practice of self-branding, also known as personal-branding, is 
utilized by social media influencers and non-influencers to broadcast their public persona to an 
audience in order to acquire financial and/or “cultural capital” (Khamis et al., 2017, p.191). To 
clarify use of the word “influencer”, I use Brooke Duffy’s definition of influencer, “cultural 
tastemakers who generate profit by integrating sponsored products and services into mediated 
depictions of their aspirational, albeit real lives” (Duffy et al., 2022, p.1,658). As the self-brand 
is used to market oneself and to “stand out in the labor market”, it seemingly goes hand-in-hand 
with notions of neoliberal ideology such as entrepreneurialism, obfuscating labor conditions, and 
the conversion of the self into a vehicle for capital (Khamis et al., 2017, p.192).  
Self-branding is often viewed as a neoliberal practice with scholars identifying the 
different ways it can be depicted as such. Scholars such as Whitmer (2019), Banet-Weiser & 
Juhasz (2011), and McGuigan (2014) see personal branding as a way of commodifying or 
marketizing the self. Brooke Duffy identifies many of self-branding’s neoliberal aspects in her 
24 
 
book (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, and Aspirational Labor in the Social 
Media Economy by examining the aspirations of influencers as well as their working conditions, 
discussing how despite being led to believe being an influencer is easy, it can be a grueling, 
exploitative occupation that involves objectification of the self. Khamis et al. (2017) trace the 
emergence of self-branding alongside social media and argue that social media encourages self-
branding. Duffy and Hund (2015) demonstrate how self-branding practices depict an idealism of 
blogging through tropes that obfuscate the real working conditions of being an influencer and 
glorify the notion of working and consuming. Duffy and Pooley (2019) further explore ideas of 
obfuscating the realities of labor through examining how celebrities’ self-branding practices of 
entrepreneurship, meritocracy, authenticity, and self-promotion are used to create a personal 
brand. Flisfeder (2015) also links self-branding practices with labor conditions by describing the 
prosumer’s unawareness of their exploitation by the ruling class and the user as a neoliberal 
subject who unknowingly becomes more alienated through practices of self-branding. 
Reviewing research on neoliberalism, specifically what the ideology is and implications 
of life under neoliberal subjectivity, helps extrapolate behavioral markers. These include 
valorization of working conditions, conversion of leisure time to productive time, 
competition/marketization, promotion of brands, and the positioning of oneself as a brand. These 
markers will be further explained and detailed in the method section below. 
RQ5: How do TikTok trends promote, glorify, or challenge the hegemonic ideals of 
neoliberalism? 
 
 
25 
 
CHAPTER 3 
METHOD 
For this project, I focused on observable behaviors and messages found in the TikTok 
DITL trend. I was specifically interested in understanding how neoliberal ideology is implicitly 
communicated via the DITL TikTok trend. I stayed away from users’ motives in creating these 
videos, instead focusing on how these videos communicated neoliberal ideology through implicit 
messaging via visuals, products, environments, movements, language, and behaviors found in the 
videos. In this thesis I used the concept of memetics to bound the data set of the Day in the Life 
TikTok trend as a form of meme through the five memetic logics of multimodality, 
reappropriation, resonance, collectivism, and spread. Memes all follow these five logics, thus 
any piece of media that fulfills all five logics should be considered a meme. Here multimodality 
means that texts are expressed via multiple modes of communication, such as “image, audio, 
[and] video” (Milner & Phillips, 2017; Milner, 2016, p.4). Reappropriation refers to the 
reworking and “recombination of existing cultural materials” (Milner & Phillips, 2017, p.31). 
Resonance is about how the text brings personal meaning to the individual—the personal 
meaning of these texts inspires the processes of “creation, circulation, and transformation” 
(Milner, 2016, p.30). Collectivism means that memetic media are a result of collective 
participation (Milner and Phillips, 2017; Milner, 2016). Finally, spread means “circulation 
through mass networks” (Milner and Phillips, 2017, p.31). Memetic logics is best used to define 
the DITL TikTok trend as a meme as these five logics clearly articulate the characteristics of a 
meme, rather than other definitions that mainly focus on similar characteristics of the memetic 
variations and a mutual awareness in memes (Nissenbaum & Shifman, 2018). 
 26 
As memetic logics are used to define the DITL TikTok trend as a meme, conservatism 
and dynamism help demonstrate how neoliberal ideology is inherent in the trend across its many 
variations within the meme. In this thesis I applied the concept of conservatism and dynamism to 
TikTok trends to examine how neoliberalism is a conservative and enduring logic uniting the 
different variations of the DITL trend despite their dynamic variations. Similarly, I used this 
concept to understand the conservatism and dynamism of how neoliberalism is demonstrated in 
the DITL trend. The concept of conservatism and dynamism is specifically useful in this thesis as 
it helps to identify how neoliberalism was represented in different ways or potentially subverted 
across these videos while still tying back to the same overall neoliberal logic. 
Sampling and Data Collection 
TikTok’s platform allows users to find videos through search methods, the “For You 
Page”—a personally-curated algorithmic feed, sounds, and hashtags. I chose to locate DITL 
trend videos through selecting videos found in the #dayinthelife, #dayinmylife, #dayinalife and 
#ditl hashtags to ensure that I was finding videos related to the DITL trend. From here I selected 
the videos through both the “Top” and “Videos” pages, choosing the first videos shown to me. 
Videos were not selected if they were not related to the DITL trend. Using this method, I relied 
on TikTok’s search algorithm to provide me with videos, which provided me with videos from 
the timeframe of February 2022 to March 2024. I created an account in order to access and save 
these videos for coding and further reflection. I created a TikTok account specifically for this 
project. This means that I may receive different videos than someone who has an established 
account as the algorithm has not learned what my preferences are through engagement with 
content as it would with someone who has been consistently using TikTok. This has some 
 27 
benefits as my personal algorithm might mimic what new users are shown on TikTok but has 
drawbacks in that it does not reflect what content many other established users may receive.  
I collected this information through 150 videos, based off of content analyses of TikTok 
videos done by prior researchers (Lookingbill, 2022; Marynak et al., 2022; Minadeo & Pope, 
2022; Vizcaíno-Verdú & Abidin, 2022). As TikTok is a social media platform where “content is 
explicitly produced for public consumption”, rather than a platform intended for private 
communication, it was not necessary to gain consent from users to analyze their videos (Warren, 
2020 as cited in Miller, 2022, p.4). 
Qualitative Analysis 
 To demonstrate that neoliberalism is inherent to the DITL trend, I employed a qualitative 
content analysis. Hsieh and Shannon define qualitative content analysis as “a research method 
for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification 
process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1278). In this 
case, I believe qualitative content analysis to be the best choice of method in order to focus on 
discovering themes that can be found in social media content. This method allowed me to create 
codes for identifiers of neoliberalism, analyze the videos for these codes, and identify themes in 
these videos. In this case, I found qualitative content analysis to be more beneficial than 
quantitative content analysis as this project required me to extrapolate and analyze user 
behaviors, language, and themes in each video, which could not be done through data scraping 
and quantitative content analysis. Data obtained from quantitative content analysis benefitted 
from having a human eye to clearly catch the behaviors, language, themes, etc. found in each 
video to make sure that nothing was missed. 
 28 
Qualitative content analysis can take three different approaches when analyzing the data: 
conventional, directed, or summative (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). I employed a directed, or 
conceptual, content analysis as this type of content analysis is guided by existing theory relevant 
to the phenomenon being explored (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). The goal of this kind of content 
analysis is “to validate or extend conceptually a theoretical framework or theory” (Hsieh & 
Shannon, 2005, p.1,281). Directed content analysis involves initially classifying coding 
categories prior to data analysis and creating definitions for each category through use of each 
theory, which I have done below. Through reviewing literature regarding neoliberalism, I 
identified key themes of neoliberalism and translated the concept into behaviors.  
Codes and Analysis 
To clearly indicate these key themes of neoliberalism found in the DITL TikTok trends it 
was integral to develop a coding schema that identifies behaviors found in the videos. These 
codes include: 
• Valorization of Working Conditions (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021; Duffy, 2017; Duffy & 
Hund, 2015; Duffy & Pooley, 2019; Khamis et al., 2017) 
o Showcasing the benefits of one’s job (Duffy, 2017) 
o Obfuscating or ignoring negative aspects of work (Duffy & Hund, 2015; Duffy, 
2017; Duffy & Pooley, 2019; Khamis et al., 2017) 
o Highlighting poor working conditions in a casual or positive way as if there is no 
alternative (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021) 
• Conversion of Leisure Time to Productive Time (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021) 
o Post-work routines that prepare oneself for the next day of work (Flisfeder, 2021) 
o “Recharging” from work (Flisfeder, 2021) 
 29 
o Activities that help accrue capital or build skills for accruing capital—the idea 
that the self is something that must be worked on and constantly improved (Dean, 
2008; Flisfeder, 2021) 
o Blurred lines between work and leisure time (Flisfeder, 2021) 
• Competition/Marketization (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021; Duffy, 2017; Flisfeder, 2021; 
Khamis et al., 2017) 
o Glorification of the entrepreneurial lifestyle—sacrifice as necessary for success, 
long hours, work taking up almost all of one’s time (Duffy, 2017; Flisfeder, 2021; 
Khamis et al., 2017) 
o Optimization of everyday life (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021) 
• Promotion of Brands (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021) 
o Promoting products or brands either as explicit ads or through showcasing 
products (Dean, 2008) 
o Enjoyment via commodities—commodity fetishism or video centering around 
consumption of products (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021) 
• Positioning Oneself as a Brand (Banet-Weiser & Juhasz, 2011; Dean, 2008; Duffy, 2017; 
Duffy et al., 2022; Duffy & Pooley, 2019; Flisfeder, 2021 Mcguigan, 2014 Whitmer, 
2019) 
o Positioning oneself as a brand through one’s occupation as their identity (Dean, 
2008) 
o Promotion of one’s business, social media, etc. (Dean, 2008) 
o Utilizing authenticity as a form of marketing oneself (Duffy & Pooley, 2019; 
Duffy et al., 2022; Whitmer, 2019) 
 30 
o Objectification of the self—treating oneself as an object, brand, or commodity 
rather than a person (Banet-Weiser & Juhasz, 2011; Duffy, 2017; Flisfeder, 2021; 
Mcguigan, 2014 Whitmer, 2019) 
In order to capture every instance of neoliberalism, I reviewed all 150 videos, sorting 
each video into one of the pre-existing codes and set aside two videos that could not be initially 
coded (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). From here I created a new code, Anomalies, as these videos did 
not express any of the predetermined codes for neoliberalism. However, these videos did express 
neoliberalism in other ways, which I discuss in the results section. Through the background 
research conducted, I expected neoliberalism to be a conservative feature of the DITL trend. 
After determining this to be true, my task became to demonstrate how exactly neoliberalism was 
communicated/performed, which was shown through coding these videos, providing examples, 
and “offering descriptive evidence” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p.1282). Additionally, I used 
explicit examples of users exhibiting behaviors that represented these codes. I chose to remove 
their handles to respect their anonymity and privacy. Although this data is considered public, 
there is no need to name individual users; it is just as effective to describe their behaviors 
without making their accounts public. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31 
CHAPTER 4 
RESULTS 
# of Videos Coded by Variation
Anomalies 2
Self as Brand 52
Brand Promo 82
Competition 33
Conversion 23
Valorization 58
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Number of Videos Coded
 
Codes by Variation 
Brand Self as 
 Valorization Conversion Competition Promo Brand Anomalies 
Nurse 11 1 1 7 4 0 
Student 7 1 8 17 12 1 
Entrepreneur 2 4 3 3 3 0 
Unemployed 0 1 2 3 1 0 
Corporate 16 9 8 12 5 0 
Influencer 9 3 4 17 10 0 
Mom 7 2 3 9 4 0 
Ambiguous 0 0 0 8 2 0 
Beauty 0 0 1 2 4 0 
Waged 5 1 3 1 1 0 
Doctor 1 0 0 2 2 0 
Other 0 0 0 1 2 1 
 
The results below identify and discuss the general conservatism and dynamism found in 
the DITL trend as well as the different code categories of neoliberalism identified in the methods 
section. All videos were successfully coded for markers of neoliberal ideology, clearly indicating 
the DITL trend’s dissemination of neoliberal ideology. Nearly every video was coded into a 
 32 
Code Categories
predetermined category of neoliberal ideology and just under half (49%) of these coded videos 
reflected multiple instances of neoliberalism by being coded into multiple categories. This 
demonstrates the ability of many of these DITL videos to communicate neoliberalism in multiple 
ways in just one video. This analysis focused on the conservative elements of neoliberalism 
found in each code as well as how neoliberalism manifested itself in various ways through 
dynamism.  
While my analysis focused on conservative and dynamic elements of neoliberalism, some 
general demographic trends of the creators should be highlighted as well. When looking at the 
gender of the creators, females made up 91% of videos while males made up 9%. When looking 
at race, White creators were disproportionately the most prevalent at 58% with the lowest being 
Hispanic creators at just 3%. 47% of users were aged 18-24, 45% were aged 25-34, and 8% 35-
44. When it came to engagement, on average, creators had 415K followers and garnered 132K 
likes and 549 comments per video. Males typically received 25% more followers than females, 
yet females garnered 39% more likes on average. When it came to race, Asian and Pacific 
Islander creators had the highest engagement at 693K followers, 199K likes, and 765 comments 
on average. For age, creators in the 35-44 range attracted the most followers (674K) while those 
in the 18-24 range garnered the most likes (142K) and comments (494) on average. Finally, 
when broken down by variation, the Other variation received the most followers (1.6M) and likes 
(316K) on average—though this was likely skewed by one creator who had 5.9M followers. The 
variation with the next largest average following was Influencers at 1.1M and the variation with 
the next largest average likes was Unemployed people at 285K. 
 33 
While videos in the DITL trend took on a variety of forms and showed many different 
occupations and activities, I will provide an example of a typical DITL video to give a general 
description of the trend: 
One Corporate worker began her video posing in her pajamas for the camera before 
making her bed, with text in the center of the video showing viewers that it was 6:30 AM. Her 
room is all white, seemingly with no windows, and a few pieces of art and decoration that are 
also white or grey. This creator is a 24-year-old white woman who works an “eight to five” 
corporate job. After making her bed she moves the camera to the bathroom to take viewers 
through her skincare routine, making sure the camera captures her laying out all of her products. 
She then moves to the kitchen to drink her supplements before heading back to her room to get in 
bed and journal. Next, she films herself applying makeup and choosing her outfit for the day, 
carefully showing off the brand of her New Balance shoes. She adorns her jewelry, showing her 
rings off for the camera, and sprays perfume on herself before making an iced coffee, showing 
off the brand on her coffee cup. The creator gets in her car for her commute to work, making 
sure to film the BMW logo while talking about her favorite podcast, “The What We Said” 
podcast. She briefly shows her breakfast at work, which she eats at her desk while typing away, 
and talks about planning for her workday. The Corporate employee then takes her lunch at noon, 
mentioning stopping at Starbucks and showing herself typing on her computer outside. She 
leaves work at 5:00 PM, once again showing herself getting in the car and flaunting the BMW 
logo on her steering wheel. She then gets home, where she participates in an online Pilates class. 
Next, she showcases her post-shower skincare routine, purposefully laying out the products for 
the camera. Finally, she films herself eating the sushi she ordered in bed while watching reality 
 34 
TV before going to bed. Throughout the video, the creator narrates the video, films herself in a 
third-person perspective, and includes timestamps throughout all of her filmed activities. 
Conservatism and Dynamism Across Codes 
From a topline view of the DITL trend, conservatism was evident through every video 
being coded for at least one marker of neoliberalism. 99% of videos were coded into the 
predetermined categories with 1% of videos being coded into a new category, Anomalies, that 
reflected neoliberal ideology in ways not found in the predetermined codes. Dynamism was 
evident through the range of occupations, or variations, that diverged across the trend. After 
reviewing all videos, I identified 11 major types of occupations and 1 category for occupations 
that remained ambiguous, indicating the divergence into different variations in the DITL trend. 
Occupations ranged from nurses, corporate employees, and entrepreneurs to students, stay at 
home moms, unemployed individuals, and more. Throughout the trend there was a broad range 
of occupations and identities present that had characteristics inherent to their own variation. For 
example, most videos in the nurse variation focused more on their job by showing their typical 
tasks for each day and explaining what they do. For example, a Nurse walked us through her day, 
showing what she eats for breakfast at work, talked a bit about her patients, and showed and 
narrated her work tasks—like discharging patients and completing an AVS summary. On the 
other hand, videos in the influencer variation often focused on a blend of personal activities and 
work-related activities. One Influencer showed viewers a day in the life as a “full time content 
creator”, filming herself in a meeting, making breakfast, running errands, and talking about 
filming an ad for a client. Dynamism was also evident through the creation styles of each video. 
Not every video took the exact form outlined in the beginning. Some videos are 30 seconds long 
and others are a few minutes long. Some videos include narration or music, a combination of the 
 35 
two, or are silent. However, every video shows the creator’s workday routine, and many show 
their pre-work or post-work routine, or both. 
Despite these divergences in the general themes of each variation, markers of 
neoliberalism remained a persistent, conservative force uniting each variation of the DITL trend 
under the umbrella of neoliberalism. For instance, every variation embodied some form of the 
Promotion of Brands and Positioning Oneself as a Brand codes, illuminating the DITL trend’s 
focus on advertising, consumption, and converting the self into a brand. One Student’s DITL 
video was a sponsored ad (see Appendix A) while an Unemployed user showed off some of her 
favorite skincare products (see Appendix A), showing the prevalence of brand promotion in 
different ways. The prevalence of users positioning themselves as brands can be found in an 
Entrepreneur’s video describing himself as a “$20K per month 21-year-old automation agency 
owner” (see Appendix A) and an Influencer creating a specific brand through her unique editing 
and referring to her other social media pages. 
Another conservative element of the DITL trend was the Corporate variation’s 
embodiment of each marker of neoliberalism. For example, some users in this variation valorized 
working conditions through showing the benefits of their jobs, converted leisure time to 
productive time through blurring the lines between labor and leisure, demonstrated the 
competitive nature of neoliberalism through glorifying their early wakeup times, promoted 
brands through showing off outfits or skincare products, and positioned themselves as a brand 
through using authenticity as a part of their personal brand. When analyzing each predetermined 
category for the number of times each variation’s videos were coded into the category, the 
Corporate variation was a top three variation in each category and the top variation for 
Valorization of Working Conditions and Conversion of Leisure Time to Productive Time. 
 36 
However, it must also be noted that the Corporate variation was the second largest genre with 25 
videos, likely contributing to its prevalence in each code category. 
As neoliberal ideology remained a constant, conservative element of the DITL trend, the 
way neoliberalism was embodied deviated throughout the variations as users adapted and altered 
the trend through their respective variations, editing styles, use of commodities, and more. Due 
to this dynamism, each code category reflected neoliberal ideology in a multitude of ways, rather 
than just one way. Users found multiple ways to glamorize their working conditions or promote 
brands all while still connecting back to their respective code. For example, DITL creators 
valorized their working conditions through highlighting the positive aspects of their jobs or 
framing the negative aspects in a positive way. Similarly, creators promoted brands through 
brand sponsorships and advertisements as well as highlighting the products they use daily for no 
compensation. These dynamic elements reflected the overarching, conservative element of 
neoliberalism. Despite these dynamic elements of the DITL trend resulting in constant change, 
the conservative element of neoliberalism was present.  
Valorization of Working Conditions 
30% 28%
25%
20% 19%
16%
15% 12% 12%
10% 9%
5% 3% 2%
0%
Variation
 
 37 
% of Code Category
Videos coded into the Valorization of Working Conditions category were videos that, 
intentionally or unintentionally, glorified the working conditions of one’s occupation. 39% of 
DITL videos were coded into the Valorization category, with the Corporate variation making up 
28% of videos coded into this category. Roughly 64% of Corporate DITL videos were coded for 
Valorization, demonstrating the corporate world’s glorification of their working conditions in the 
DITL trend. Dynamism in neoliberal ideology was found in the various ways working conditions 
were valorized throughout this category. Valorization was communicated through highlighting 
only the positive aspects of one’s job (Duffy & Hund, 2015; Duffy, 2017), endorsing or 
downplaying poor working conditions as if they were something positive or should be accepted 
without resistance (Duffy & Hund, 2015; Duffy, 2017; Duffy & Pooley, 2019; Khamis et al., 
2017), and attempts at subversion that resulted in upholding neoliberal ideology. Yet despite 
these variations in the way neoliberalism was upheld, the element of obfuscation of labor 
conditions remained central to each video in these categories. 
One Corporate employee flaunted a day in her life, beginning at 5 AM in which she 
filmed herself dancing and showing off her outfit, showing her excitement for the day. She 
signed up for a boxing class and took viewers through the Buzzfeed office, a news and 
entertainment company, where she works. Her office features a giant red “Buzzfeed” logo, large 
white desks, and windows showing the city and buildings around her. She and her coworkers are 
seen dancing, and she mentions they weren’t doing any work. Her and her coworkers don’t seem 
to be adhering to any uniform, instead wearing whatever they choose rather than a specific office 
dress code. She shows some specifics of her jobs, including a clip from her work where she sits 
in front of a purple backdrop with a pink bucket hat on. She then fast forwarded to after work 
where she attended a Complex Magazine event, showing the bright lights of the neighboring 
 38 
buildings at night in the rain. She filmed many clips throughout the event and ended the video 
talking about getting home late. The valorization of working conditions can be seen here through 
this creator’s curation of content to only show the benefits of her job, ignoring any negative 
aspects that may come with her job. 
DITL videos in this code category highlighted the positive aspects of one’s job through 
making one’s job look easy and enjoyable, thus obfuscating the hardships one may endure in that 
occupation. These behaviors were largely adapted from work on self-branding, social media 
influencers, and bloggers (Duffy & Hund, 2015; Duffy, 2017). One Entrepreneurial creator 
showed only the positive aspects of being an entrepreneur such as setting his own schedule, 
leaving the office early, and flexibility of working areas. A Corporate employee glorified 
working full time in biotech while being a part time influencer, focused on working from home, 
finished work early, and had plenty of time after work. 53% of videos in this category only 
showed the best parts of their workday, like creators being able to choose where they work, short 
hours, or perks of their job—such as free meals provided by their company. In instances of 
videos that curated their video content to only show the enjoyable aspects of their day, users do 
not see a realistic “day in the life”, instead they see highlight reels of the profession that do not 
address issues that occur in one’s day-to-day work life. By choosing to only focus on positive 
aspects of their jobs for the DITL videos, leaving out anything that viewers might find negative, 
these videos constructed an idealized, fantastical version of their working conditions. 
Beyond just omitting the negative aspects of one’s job, videos in this category sometimes 
showed instances of users discussing their poor working conditions by framing them in a positive 
way, with 29% of videos in this category doing so. These behaviors were extrapolated from Jodi 
Dean (2008) and Matthew Flisfeder’s (2021) work on neoliberalism and enjoyment. Poor 
 39 
working conditions were sometimes explicitly conveyed by creators pointing out their 
dissatisfaction and other times were not mentioned at all, instead being present in the video 
without the creators addressing them. A Mom highlighted the difficulties of being a stay-at-home 
mother by discussing people criticizing her for not working, her long hours spent caring for her 
child, and her general lack of time. Similarly, a few nurses in the DITL trend showed or 
discussed being so busy they couldn’t eat. Two creators discussed how they are often not able to 
eat lunch but framed this as an expectation of the job, both going on to talk about how much they 
enjoy being a nurse. It appears that videos valorizing working conditions, beyond only showing 
positive aspects of one’s work, obfuscate poor labor conditions by framing them as something 
that comes with the job and downplaying the negative aspects, such as long hours, low pay, etc. 
Through these positive framings, we see neoliberalism’s demand to enjoy one’s labor despite 
difficulties in one’s occupation. There is no harm in enjoying one’s job, however we do see 
unrealistic representations of the reality of work when users glorify the negative aspects of their 
jobs. By legitimizing negative or exploitative workplace issues, these creators are actively 
participating in neoliberalism’s notion of profit taking precedent over working conditions. 
However, not every video glorifying their working conditions made these glorifications 
explicitly obvious, embodying a dynamism through the way neoliberalism was present in this 
category. As the DITL trend communicates a neoliberal ideology that valorizes neoliberal 
working conditions, the DITL trend also becomes a site that contains the potential for 
subversion. That is, as the template calls for and allows for users to glorify their working 
conditions, creators can attempt to subvert the template and show the reality of one’s working 
conditions. Despite the large number of videos glorifying their working conditions, there were a 
 40 
few instances (18%) of users attempting to subvert the traditional positivity found in the DITL 
trend to show a more realistic version of their job and their attitude towards working.  
One Waged employee discussed having no friends due to her work schedule, showed 
herself going to bed at 3:00 AM, and included the hashtag #dontwork2jobs (see Appendix A) in 
the caption of her video. There were also instances of a few users in the Mom variation who 
classified themselves as “#brokemoms” (see Appendix A), indicating that they did not have the 
same amount of time or money that other mothers in the variation had. However, despite users 
showing a more “realistic” version of their day-to-day work life that captured, and sometimes 
centered around, negative aspects of the workday or poor labor conditions, these users were still 
unable to subvert the neoliberal ideology inherent to the trend. Ideology resists these subversions 
as “ideological illusions cannot be dispelled through critical interrogation”, rather they only 
allow us to cope with the reality of the situation (Coffin, 2022, p.467). Despite the Waged 
employee’s realistic depiction of her working conditions, she continues to reinforce the status 
quo through a certain humor and positivity in her video alongside some small benefits that come 
with her jobs. Other videos contribute to glorification by aestheticizing these videos with music, 
carefully crafted shots, or including some humor despite their very real (and valid) complaints 
about the system they have been forced to work under. One Nurse discussed her 13-hour shift 
and the lack of time she has but was quick to cover up the reality of her long hours and lack of 
time by joking about finally being able to take a lunch, something that she insinuates does not 
happen as often as she would like. Here we see a fetishistic disavowal, where “informed subjects 
continue to act as if they are unaware of the truth”, by acknowledging long hours, lack of time, 
etc. yet continuing to operate as if these conditions do not affect them (Coffin, 2022, p.467). This 
fetishistic disavowal works to uphold the neoliberal ideology present in these videos. This can be 
 41 
seen through these more realistic videos demonstrating that there is no alternative to neoliberal 
capitalism—they do not try and change their working conditions or inquire deeper into the root 
causes of the issue; rather they have accepted them, reifying notions of neoliberalism, despite 
their critiques throughout the video.  
Throughout the DITL videos that valorized working conditions, obfuscation became a 
conservative element inherent to this category despite variations in how it occurred—either 
through leaving out negative aspects, framing them in a positive manner, or brushing them off 
after discussing the difficulties that come with these conditions. Similarly, despite users 
highlighting difficulties or poor working conditions, creating a dynamism in the way that 
working conditions were discussed, the conservative element of neoliberalism remained apparent 
as these users still inadvertently reinforced neoliberal ideology through their behaviors. 
Conversion of Leisure Time to Productive Time 
45%
39%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20% 17%
15% 13%
10% 9% 9%
4% 4% 4%
5%
0%
Variation
 
Under neoliberalism, individuals are encouraged to optimize every bit of time in an effort 
to become more productive, thus taking away from their personal leisure time (Flisfeder, 2021). 
This category was the smallest, with only 15% of DITL videos being coded into this category. 
 42 
% of Code Category
Despite its small number, neoliberal ideology was still very much embodied in these videos. The 
Corporate variation made up 39% of this category, perhaps indicating the neoliberal effects that 
this type of work has on the individual in the DITL trend. In all variations coded in this category, 
dynamism of the conversion of leisure time to productive time was seen through users converting 
relaxing, personal activities into productive tasks and blurring lines between leisurely and 
productive activities. Despite the dynamism found throughout these videos, an element of 
productivity—in this case, activities that benefit oneself through increasing one’s ability to 
accrue capital—remained persistent throughout this code. 
The conversion of leisure time to productive time can be found in one “24, unemployed 
and living at home with my parents” creator’s DITL video. She begins her video checking her 
emails, editing her LinkedIn, and tending to other productive tasks on her computer. We 
immediately see her white room, with polaroid pictures lining the wall above her computer and 
her colorful keyboard. She then goes to meet her friend to work together at a café. The café 
features ambient lighting, wooden chairs, tables, and some walls with sunflowers painted on one 
of the walls. Finally, she ends the video talking about the vision board she created and showing 
herself playing videogames in front of the same computer and wall we see in the beginning of 
the video. Right away in this video we see leisure time converted into productive time through 
the creator starting her day off checking emails and working on her LinkedIn profile and then 
heading off to get some work done with her friend. Of course, there is nothing wrong with 
someone who is unemployed looking applying to jobs, however, we do see neoliberal ideology 
here as the creator may feel pressured to be as productive as possible by applying to jobs and 
making herself more marketable through working on her LinkedIn and working with a friend. 
 43 
A major theme in this category was users transforming their leisurely activities into 
productive ones with 60% of videos in this category doing so. These behaviors were extrapolated 
from Matthew Flisfeder’s discussion of “value-producing activity”—activities that are performed 
in order to add value to oneself (Flisfeder, 2021, p.110). Activities were less about leisure and 
more about optimizing one’s time and building one’s skills in the name of productivity. This was 
demonstrated in an Entrepreneur’s use of meditation, an activity known for relaxing and clearing 
one’s mind, as a way to become more productive for the workday. This was also demonstrated 
by another Entrepreneur’s refusal to read any book that isn’t self-help or finance related, thus 
ensuring that his reading time is spent learning a new skill or finding a way to increase 
knowledge that will help him leverage more capital. Neoliberalism displaces these once leisurely 
and relaxing activities and recodes them into capitalist tools for increasing one’s worth and 
further optimizing their time.  
While some users converted leisurely activities and downtime into productive time, other 
users blurred the lines between where leisure activities begin and work ends. User behaviors 
were adapted from Flisfeder’s (2021) discussion of the lack of separation between work and 
leisure under neoliberalism. Under a neoliberal ideology, as individuals attempt to convert more 
and more leisure time into productive time, it can be difficult to tell where work-related activities 
end and where personal time begins. 43% of videos in this category demonstrated blurred lines 
between one’s work and personal life. One user walks viewers through a day in her life as an 
Influencer (and a mother), filming a large portion of her day, including filming her son’s haircut 
and birthday party for a vlog. Perhaps typically seen as more intimate or private events, this 
creator chose to take the opportunity to turn them into monetizable content for her vlog. 
Productive time can be seen in another way as a Corporate employee showed herself enjoying 
 44 
some wine with friends/coworkers with her laptop open during the workday—here it becomes 
unclear if she is on break, at a work-related happy hour, or has decided to combine her leisure 
time (drinking with friends) and productive time (working). These users have blurred the lines 
between their personal time and their working time, through an inability to see where work ends 
and leisure begins. It appears that for some creators every aspect of the day, as well as days off 
work, are a chance to be turned into something productive. The neoliberal pressure to monetize 
everything can be seen here through not being able to separate work from one’s personal life, 
instead choosing to monetize one’s personal life or focus on productive tasks throughout their 
personal time.  
The notion of productivity was a persistent, conservative element of neoliberalism found 
throughout this category. Users reflected some aspects of productivity through either explicitly 
converting their leisure time into productive time or by blurring the lines between their personal 
and working time. Dynamism resulted in this bifurcation in the way productivity was shown 
throughout videos coded into this category as users reappropriated the way productivity was 
communicated.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 45 
Competition/Marketization 
25% 24% 24%
20%
15%
12%
10% 9% 9% 9%
6%
5% 3% 3%
0%
Variation
 
As users found ways to convert much of their downtime and leisure time into productive 
time, users also endorsed the competitive nature of neoliberalism and marketized themselves in 
the process (Dean, 2008). Throughout this category a conservative element of sacrifice can be 
found—the notion that users had to sacrifice their time and activities to be competitive members 
of the workforce. Videos coded into the Competition/Marketization category embodied 
neoliberalism in various ways, typically seen through early wake-up times, sacrificing activities 
or multitasking, and using competitive rhetoric throughout the video. Despite these variations, 
videos in this category reflected this element of sacrifice. 22% of videos were coded for markers 
of competition/marketization with Students and Corporate employees each making up 24% of 
the videos in this category, demonstrating the hypercompetitive nature of academic institutions 
and corporate jobs found in the DITL trend.  
One Student provided a clear example of the Competition/Marketization category 
through her DITL. Her video starts in the bathroom, showing off clean white walls and a clean 
sink, where she adorns her gym outfit—an oversized brown sweatshirt over exercise shorts and a 
 46 
% of Code Category
t-shirt. Before leaving she makes her bed, where we see her room with all white walls and some 
wooden shelves that hold a few books and a small plant. Her day starts at 6:30 AM to get to the 
gym before returning home to eat breakfast and read her bible, saving time by multitasking. 
Upon returning home we see her wooden floors, white wood shelves and cabinets, and her black 
couch. She then goes to class, meets a friend, and goes to Target to do some shopping. 
Throughout the video she uses rhetoric that references productivity using “#productivity” in the 
caption and titling the video “Busy College Day in My Life” in the opening frame. This Student 
embodies competition through her early wakeup time, multitasking, and rhetoric that allows her 
to be more competitive and thus market herself as a busy and productive college student. 
One of the glaring indications of competition and marketization were videos featuring 
users waking up at very early hours in order to complete their morning routines before work, 
with 48% of viewers showing themselves waking up early or articulating that they did so. The 
competitiveness of waking up early was derived from Duffy (2017), Flisfeder (2021), and 
Khamis et al.’s (2017) notions of glorification of entrepreneurialism and the need to sacrifice for 
one’s occupation under neoliberalism. As the adage goes, “time is money” and neoliberalism 
invokes its subjects to optimize their time to be effective employees and accrue more capital. 
Some Corporate employees demonstrated their dedication to competition by showing themselves 
waking up before 5 AM to go to the gym and get ready before work. These users hardly 
acknowledged these early wakeup times as if this were a standard expectation in order to remain 
a competitive member of society. This can partially help be explained by the notion that the 
contemporary lifestyle has become rushed due to being “inextricably immersed in a continually 
accelerating neoliberal sociopolitical and economic order in which speed is propounded in the 
name of competition and efficiency” (Sugarman & Thrift, 2020, p.861). For these users, it 
 47 
appears that getting an early start to the day helps them become more competitive and efficient in 
their occupations. Some users seemed to be forced to wake up at increasingly earlier times just to 
be able to complete the routines that help them get ready for work and stay healthy, routines that 
everyone deserves to have ample time to complete. Other creators listed the benefits of waking 
up early and explicitly glorified their early wakeup times, not only contributing to this idea that 
sacrifice is necessary to get ahead, but endorsing it. Users advocating for early wake ups early 
have wholeheartedly embraced the competitive nature of neoliberalism, thus further idealizing 
the competitive nature of neoliberalism through their own content and marketing themselves as 
competitive members of neoliberal society. 
As some users woke up early to fit in all their tasks before work and get a jump on the 
competition, 21% of users forwent or substituted certain tasks and activities (like cooking and 
the gym, for work and studying) to make themselves more competitive with their peers. 
Similarly, other users stacked multiple tasks on top of each other and optimized their daily lives 
to maximize their profitability, displaying another dynamic aspect of the competitive nature of 
neoliberalism. Forgoing/substituting tasks and multitasking fall in line with Dean (2008) and 
Flisfeder’s (2021) discussion of the optimization of one’s time under neoliberalism. The 
sacrificing of activities and hyper-optimization of everyday life can be seen as efforts to embrace 
competition through maximizing efficiency to gain an advantage wherever possible. One 
Corporate employee walked on a treadmill while she worked while a Student mentioned not 
having time to cook due to studying for finals, both finding ways to optimize their time for 
maximum productivity. Many videos in this category embodied the neoliberal work ethics of 
sacrifice and optimization in order to remain competitive in their occupation—in these cases it 
 48 
was not merely enough to get up early, one had to forgo activities or multitask, to remain a 
competitive member of the neoliberal workforce.  
Another important aspect of this category was justifying, productive, and competitive 
rhetoric used in videos with 42% of videos in this category employing this rhetoric. Rhetoric was 
identified from extrapolation of Duffy (2017), Flisfeder (2021), Khamis (2017), and Dean’s 
(2008) discussions of neoliberalism and competition. One way this was communicated was 
through users justifying their working conditions through invoking words like “sacrifice” and 
“grateful” to demonstrate how lucky they were to be able to be in the position they were in. 
While, of course, there are much worse places to be than at an office, working two jobs, or 
working full time as a mother, this does not mean that we must accept difficult or exploitative 
working conditions. Some TikTok users stated how thankful they were or how they needed to be 
more thankful about the position they were in while showing themselves working long hours 
and/or working multiple jobs. We can see even more dynamism within this subcategory as while 
some users felt the need to justify their long hours, other users blatantly glorified it or 
encouraged it. Users sometimes used competitive and productive rhetoric to communicate the 
neoliberal idea of competition. One Entrepreneur often used words like “conquer” or “dominate” 
throughout his video when talking about his workday, while another user who works two jobs 
included “lets get this money” and hashtags such as #monteytok, #moneymagnet, and 
#workworkwork in the caption (see Appendix A). Both users glorified the competitive pursuit of 
capital through deploying specific words that positively portray competition. For some of these 
users, work was not about collaboration, it was about competing with rival businesses and other 
members of the workforce to become the most successful. We can clearly see neoliberalism’s 
ability to reconceptualize daily “life in terms of its ideal of competition within markets” in the 
 49 
way certain TikTok users frame their labor and routines as hyper-competitive (Dean, 2008, 
p.49).  
The conservative element of sacrifice was seen throughout videos in this category, 
dynamically taking on a few different shapes. Users sacrificed time and/or sleep to get up early, 
surrendered activities to be more competitive, and even invoked themes of sacrifice in their 
competitive rhetoric. Throughout the instances of competition/marketization seen above, we see 
some form of sacrifice in each, despite the dynamistic variations in the way this sacrifice was 
demonstrated. 
Promotion of Brands 
25%
21% 21%
20%
15%
15%
11%
10%
10% 9%
5% 4% 4% 2% 2%
1% 1%
0%
Variation
 
As the competitive nature of neoliberalism was promoted through the DITL trend, so was 
neoliberalism’s consumptive nature. In fact, consumption was a major trend throughout the 
entire DITL trend with Brand Promotion coded in over half (55%) of the videos. Throughout this 
category, videos can be found with users promoting products explicitly as advertisements, 
showcasing products thus inadvertently promoting brands without compensation, and their video 
being centered around commodities and consumption (Dean, 2008; Flisfeder, 2021). The Student 
 50 
% of Code Category
and Influencer variations each made up 21% of the videos coded into this category, 
demonstrating the consumptive nature of these occupations in the DITL trend. Consumption and 
advertising remained conservative elements throughout this category, with these elements 
dynamically taking different shapes through brand partnerships/sponsored ads and users 
inadvertently promoting products. 
The promotion of brands can be clearly seen in a Student’s DITL video. She starts the 
video by showing herself get out of bed and get ready for the day. While getting ready, she 
shows off her outfit, making sure to name the brand for every article of clothing and jewelry. She 
then heads off to school, showing off the label of her kombucha before she leaves. She then eats 
lunch and goes to class before ending her video waving and blowing a kiss to the camera. In this 
video she inadvertently promotes brands by naming the companies of all the clothes she is 
wearing. Despite her showcasing of brands, there is no indication that she has partnered with any 
of these brands in her video. 
A few (6%) brand partnerships and sponsored ads appeared throughout this category. The 
promotion of brands is derived from Dean’s (2008) discussions of neoliberalism and the constant 
encouragement of consumption. Some users briefly talked about products they received from 
sponsors and included the brand in the caption of their video. Other users’ DITL videos were 
completely centered around the product they were promoting, such as a video showing a Student 
using the iPad she “bought” off the website Backmarket (see Appendix A), and using the hashtag 
“#ad”. Similarly, one Influencer’s DITL video is all about her visiting Labcorp to get health 
testing done, including the hashtags “#ad” and “#labcorppartner” (see Appendix A) in the 
caption of her video. In these types of videos there was a dynamism in the way brand 
sponsorships or advertisements were disclosed—while some videos briefly featured users 
 51 
showcasing these sponsored products, other videos were entirely centered around this 
advertisement. Despite advertisements taking on a few different forms, the conservative element 
of consumption was present in these videos through users becoming spokespersons for the 
brands they are promoting, encouraging users to purchase these products. In some cases, the 
entire video became an advertisement, highlighting the neoliberal need to marketize everything 
that can be marketized. 
While some users received some form of compensation to promote brands in their DITL 
video, it is likely that the majority (94%) were not compensated (or at least did not disclose the 
partnership/compensation). These behaviors were derived from Dean (2008) and Flisfeder’s 
(2021) discussion of neoliberalism’s constant encouragement to enjoy and consume. Users often 
talked about their favorite products they used in their morning routines, actively showcased 
products they enjoyed, and even reviewed or endorsed products in their video. A Nurse showed 
off her favorite shoes and lotion, a Corporate employee named the brand of every article of 
clothing in the outfit she wore, another Corporate employee talked about her job at Google as if 
the video were an advertisement for the company, and a Beautician reviewed the products she 
uses at her job. Despite no indications of these users receiving compensation or partnering with 
the brands they were inadvertently promoting we still see the consumptive nature of 
neoliberalism in these videos. The constant, deliberate showcasing of products may remind one 
of Thorstein Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption, the idea of consuming to 
demonstrate one’s wealth (Walters & Carr, 2019). Yet unlike the notion of conspicuous 
consumption, it is not only the bourgeois and nouveau riche flaunting their luxurious products, it 
is all classes that engage in this behavior. Similarly, this behavior seems to move beyond 
conspicuous consumption, instead some videos heavily focused on consumption throughout the 
 52 
day, creating an almost consumptive-ontology—that is, brands and commodities have become so 
important under neoliberalism that our lives begin to center around consumption. 
As consumption became an important aspect of users’ videos, some products were also 
framed as useful and productive (taken from Flisfeder’s (2021) notion of neoliberalism’s 
encouragement of every activity to be a productive one) through a fusion of the notions of 
productivity and consumption. Some users purchased products that helped them free up their 
leisure time as they felt (and demonstrated) that they did not have enough time before or after 
work to do everything they wanted or needed to. Some videos featured these creators drinking 
“morning greens”, a type of supplement that helps consumers get in vitamins and nutrients 
typically obtained from fruits and vegetables, thus saving them the time and hassle of cooking 
and eating. Videos also featured creators using vacuum robots, ordering takeout, and subscribing 
to meal preparation services in order to save themselves time from cleaning and cooking. For 
example, one Corporate employee showed off her new “robot vacuum” that cleans for her so she 
can unwind and watch TV after a long day of work. Neoliberalism is apparent here through the 
workday exhausting users’ time, thus leading to purchasing products that promise to help them 
take back more leisure time. As neoliberalism requires the average worker to spend much of 
one’s day working, leaving less time for consumption, neoliberalism also finds ways to 
overcome this self-imposed barrier of time through the creation of products that promise to give 
individuals their time back (Flisfeder, 2021).  
The conservative element of consumption and advertising were evident in every video in 
this category yet took on a dynamism by diverging into two evident forms—the paid 
advertisement and users promoting brands without compensation. Despite the majority of videos 
not technically being advertisements, many of them contained aspects of advertising through 
 53 
videos highlighting the products users consumed. Here we see neoliberalism embodied through 
the obvious promotion of brands through advertisements, further encouraging viewers to 
consume more products, but also through a more subtle promotion of brands through creators 
discussing and showcasing brands they use. Neoliberalism seems to reconceptualize the 
entertainment value of the DITL trend, partially converting these videos into advertisements 
through both sponsored and non-sponsored endorsements of products by the video creator. This 
contributes to the consumptive nature of neoliberalism by the products that the creator promotes 
or consumes becoming a large focus of the DITL video. Throughout this category there appeared 
to be a pervasiveness of advertising that affected content creation strategies, ranging from 
partnering with companies to creating videos that felt like advertisements. This use of the 
TikTok as an advertisement reflects the neoliberal ideology through making these videos an 
investment for those who have secured brand partnerships, the aspiration to secure a brand 
partnership, and/or a nonconscious effect of users attempting to recreate videos by adhering to 
the content creation norms seen in previous videos. 
Positioning Oneself as a Brand 
30%
25%
25%
20% 19%
15%
10% 10%
10% 8% 8%
6%
5% 4% 4% 4% 2% 2%
0%
Variation
 
 54 
% of Code Category
Some TikTok creators participating in the DITL trend mirrored promotion of brands and 
products they used by also positioning themselves as brands (Banet-Weiser & Juhasz, 2011; 
Duffy, 2017; Mcguigan, 2014 Whitmer, 2019). 35% of DITL videos were coded for Positioning 
Oneself as a Brand, with the Student variation making up 25% of the videos in this category. 
Videos were coded into this category when users positioned themselves as brands through 
extreme aestheticization of videos and employing deliberate movements to create a distinct 
brand, deploying authenticity as a brand, and self-objectification by reducing themselves to a 
marketable brand. Self-objectification remained a conservative element throughout this category 
as creators employed different strategies to position themselves as a brand to their viewers. 
An Influencer couple provide a clear example of converting the self into a brand through 
their DITL. They take us through a typical day in their life in New York City, starting off the 
video getting ready for the day set to a calm song. They use quick cuts to show themselves 
exercising, walking around the city in the rain, eating, and going to a spa. They then adorn new 
outfits, posing for the camera while showing off their clothes. The influencers then show 
themselves at a fancy event taking pictures before ending the video. In the caption of the video, 
they include a reference to another social media page—“my new makeup routine on YT”. Here 
we see these creators converting themselves into a brand by using their editing style to create a 
unique brand and encouraging viewers to check out their other social media page, an extension 
of this brand. Similarly, this appears to be the only DITL that focuses on a couple, perhaps 
indicating their use of their relationship as a part of their brand. 
One of the ways dynamism was communicated in this category was through creators’ use 
of editing and behaviors to communicate their self-brand. These behaviors were derived from 
research on neoliberalism and self-branding (Banet-Weiser & Juhasz, 2011; Duffy, 2017; 
 55 
Mcguigan, 2014 Whitmer, 2019). Specifically, 19% of users in this category’s style of editing 
and curation communicated their self-brand through extreme aestheticization and deliberate, 
repetitive movements. This was quite apparent in a user’s “DITL of a mom” in which she 
showed herself making the same face (smiling with eyes closed) throughout much of the video, 
speaking softly into the microphone, and using deliberate, exaggerated, and repetitive 
movements while she cooked. An Influencer engaged in a similar practice by using a fast, 
choppy editing style in tandem with slow, zooming shots and exaggerated, deliberate movements 
throughout his video. Similar to Valorization of Working Conditions, users often also chose only 
the best shots possible to include in their videos that would provide some aesthetic appeal. Some 
creators chose to foreground well-organized products and lavish meals, while others created 
aesthetic coffee art and some men filmed themselves exercising shirtless in well-lit gyms. 
Together, all of these highly specific, curated choices and movements created a specific brand 
for the creator by demonstrating a very specific style of video. This brand can be seen as another 
way to market oneself to potential audiences and further capture viewers’ attention. Thus, the 
brand the creators communicated represented a marketized and commoditized self—a neoliberal 
self-brand. 
On the opposite end of the spectrum, rather than creating highly curated content, roughly 
21% of TikTok creators in this category used authenticity to construct a self-brand, contributing 
to a dynamism in the way users converted the self into a brand. The use of authenticity was 
adapted from work on self-branding and authenticity (Duffy & Pooley, 2019; Duffy et al., 2022; 
Whitmer, 2019). Creators filmed “realistic DITL” videos that gave viewers a glimpse behind the 
scenes of typical social media’s idealized content. One Corporate employee filmed a “realistic 
morning of a 27-year-old with a normal job” (see Appendix A), demonstrating her authenticity 
 56 
through showing herself wake up, looking sleepy and having not gotten ready, and taking 
viewers through her morning routine. A Nurse communicated her authenticity through using the 
word “realistic” in the title of the video, talked about how nursing is “not like Grey’s Anatomy” 
(a TV show), and filmed herself using the bathroom all while talking about what the workday 
entails. Other users did not explicitly use the word “realistic” in the title of the video, but instead 
demonstrated authenticity by discussing topics that conveyed a sense of realism and may create a 
sense intimacy with her viewers. For example, one Nurse talked about getting amniotic fluid on 
herself at work and shared personal opinions on her job. Literature on self-branding discusses 
how presenting oneself as “authentic” becomes a way to commodify and market oneself to 
viewers which can be seen in these users’ videos use of the word “realistic” and giving users 
“behind-the-scenes” glimpses into their daily lives that may differ from the highly curated videos 
found in the DITL trend. These notions of authenticity become opaque, and perhaps even 
diminished, as viewers may begin to wonder if these filmed behaviors are genuine or just another 
way to market themselves to users. 
As users found ways to further promote themselves, they also displayed a dynamism in 
the ways they objectified themselves, with users presenting themselves as more of a brand than a 
person, which was seen in 74% of users in this category. Self-objectification and reflections of 
the self as a brand originated from research on neoliberalism and self-branding (Banet-Weiser & 
Juhasz, 2011; Duffy, 2017; Flisfeder, 2021; Mcguigan, 2014 Whitmer, 2019). One way this was 
done was through their handle, or username, being a reflection of their job or creator status, 
which was seen in 28% of users in this category. For instance, users included the words 
“recruiter” (see Appendix A) and “hair by” in their handle to leave no ambiguity as to what their 
occupation is. While some users opted to show more personal aspects of their daily life, many 
 57 
users chose to only show their work, and these handles often indicated that the video would be 
more oriented towards their occupation than other DITL videos. When watching a video of a 
Nurse take us through her activities before and after work, one may get a greater sense for who 
the user is rather than the Corporate employee who only shows himself sitting at his desk typing 
away on his computer and drinking coffee. In the latter case, we learn nothing about the user, 
instead we are only able to see what their job entails. This may give off the impression that the 
creator may have little going on in their life outside of work and perhaps has made work an 
important aspect of their identity. Users also converted themselves into a brand through 
promoting their other social media channels or using their video to promote their business. A 
UPS worker promoted his self-brand by asking viewers to follow his YouTube channel while an 
Influencer made references to her vlogs and other social media posts. Beyond these users 
promoting their social media these creators treated the viewers like fans of their self-brand by 
making sure they were up to date with all of their content, further positioning themselves as 
some sort of product or brand. Another example of self-promotion can be seen in creators using 
their DITL to promote their business. One Beautician demonstrated this self-promotion by 
extensively showing the work she did on her client and including the pricing of her services in 
the video as if it were a commercial.  
This conservative element of self-objectification remained persistent throughout this 
category, dynamically taking on various forms through creators turning themselves into a brand 
through their content creation style, using authenticity to market themselves, and self-
objectification through equating oneself with their occupation, promoting their social media 
platforms, or using their DITL as an advertisement. These reductions of the self into a brand 
 58 
indicate neoliberalism’s ability to objectivize the individual and turn them into nothing more 
than commodities, ready to be sold to the attention economy. 
Anomalies 
60%
50% 50%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Student Other
Variation
 
Videos coded into the Anomalies category perhaps take on the greatest dynamism of all 
the code categories. Videos coded into this category did not initially fit into any of the 
predetermined categories, with only two videos (1%) coded into this category. These videos did 
not glorify one’s working conditions, demonstrate conversion of personal time into productive 
time, promote any brands, or position oneself as a brand. Despite these videos not 
communicating the normal tenets of neoliberalism found in every other video, they did still 
communicate an important aspect, or symptom, of neoliberalism—atomization. A Student took 
viewers through an average day in her life going to class and running errands. Although she was 
in public places for much of the video, we do not see her interacting with anyone else. Instead, 
we see her eating alone, going to class alone, and ending her day alone. Similarly, an airline pilot 
(Other variation) filmed her daily life getting ready for work, flying, and going straight back to a 
new hotel after work. Although it can likely be assumed that both creators had some form of 
 59 
% of Code Category
social interaction throughout their day, the user-centric approach to the video (also found in 
many videos throughout the DITL genre) highlights the importance of the individual and the 
commitment to one’s occupation having the potential to isolate one from others through a lack of 
time. Through depictions of days spent alone and a lack of socializing we see how the conditions 
of a neoliberal society serve to cut individuals off from each other. Long, busy work or 
schooldays convert communities into nothing more than individuals by normalizing 
individualistic routines and further marketizing oneself in the pursuit of capital.  
  
 60 
CHAPTER 5 
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 
This thesis analyzed 150 videos found in TikTok’s Day in the Life trend in order to 
examine the videos for conservative, persisting elements of neoliberalism that were inherent to 
the trend as well as how videos exhibited dynamism through neoliberalism being presented and 
performed by the video creators in various ways. This analysis was done by first describing the 
overall conservatism and dynamism found in the DITL trend before diving into conservatism and 
dynamism found in each code category to examine how neoliberalism took on various forms 
throughout the trend. 
Throughout this thesis I was able to demonstrate how neoliberal ideology remained an 
enduring theme throughout the DITL trend through every video being coded for markers of 
neoliberalism, the Corporate variation’s embodiment of neoliberalism, and the persistence of the 
predetermined codes throughout the trend. I established neoliberal ideology’s ability to take on 
dynamism through the various variations of the trend and neoliberalism’s ability to manifest in 
different ways throughout each predetermined code. 
This thesis demonstrates TikTok’s ability to promote neoliberal ideology specifically via 
the DITL trend through users’ ideological performances that serve to reify neoliberalism. By 
finding direct examples of these performances, I was able to demonstrate what neoliberalism 
looks like through visual representations rather than through abstractions, as neoliberalism is 
typically described. I specifically chose to focus on neoliberalism as this ideology is presented 
throughout this trend as the standard way of living. It is important to examine how the DITL 
trend reflects neoliberal ideology as it is imperative to understand how these videos uphold 
neoliberalism, thus contributing to the notion that there is no alternative to neoliberalism. The 
 61 
belief that neoliberalism is our reality and that there is no alternative is harmful as it may lead 
subjects to commodify and marketize their daily lives and identities, accept suboptimal working 
conditions, and ignore efforts to strive for improvements in one’s work life. Similarly, this 
reification of neoliberal ideology is detrimental as it sets neoliberalism as the norm and 
contributes to the economization of every aspect of life, thus minimizing the importance of other 
aspects of life outside of profit and competition. While this thesis will not deliver us from 
neoliberalism, it does provide a starting point from which to analyze social media for the 
persistence of neoliberal ideology, as well as the different forms this ideology takes. By being 
aware of the media we consume, or create, we can begin to understand how this content 
perpetuates and upholds tenets of neoliberal ideology. Through being more aware of how 
neoliberalism is implicitly portrayed in social media content, perhaps we can find ways to 
become more resistant to this ideology’s indoctrination. Despite this, there is still much work to 
be done in the area of neoliberalism and social media. As new iterations of media are created and 
ideology finds new ways to be disseminated, research should continue to examine how it is 
communicated. 
Limitations 
I acknowledge that there are certain limitations in conducting this analysis as I was reliant 
on TikTok’s algorithm to provide me content. This may mean that the videos I received when 
looking for these videos may have been different than what others may receive due to unique 
curations of the TikTok algorithm dependent on each user. This could mean that other users may 
be exposed to different types of DITL videos that may not necessarily reflect the same data I 
gathered. For instance, they may see more of certain variations or different variations altogether. 
This may lead to different findings, such as conservatism and dynamism being apparent in other 
 62 
ways, different variations being more prevalent throughout the trend, or finding different themes 
in code categories. Another limitation of this study is the study being limited to online behaviors 
only. Because of this I was unable to gauge users and creators about their opinions on the DITL 
trend and ideology. Other limitations regarding the TikTok platform include videos that could be 
considered part of this trend that were not under the hashtags I chose to explore. This study’s 
findings do not capture the full landscape of the DITL trend due to posts related to the topic 
without the hashtag not being explored and convenience sampling videos given to me through 
searching these hashtags. Similarly, this analysis only documents a certain point in time 
(February 2022 to March 2024) and cannot account for future videos. Despite these limitations, I 
believe that this thesis provides a representative framing to address how neoliberalism is 
communicated via TikTok trends through looking at a variety of videos that capture a range of 
variations over time. 
Future Research 
Further research could be done by focusing on participant research. This could be done 
by interviewing creators who have participated in this trend to better understand their content 
creation strategies and what they decided to show in their video. Similarly, viewers could be 
surveyed or interviewed to investigate how much DITL content they consume and if they are 
influenced by the content. It would also be beneficial to investigate other platforms, like 
YouTube or Instagram, to explore these platforms’ effects on communicating neoliberal ideology 
as well as similarities and differences between DITL content found on each platform. 
Additionally, it may be helpful to conduct research on how these behaviors manifest in “real 
life”—such as how is valorization of working conditions or conversion of leisure time to 
productive time found in everyday life outside of social media.  
 63 
Appendices  
 
 
 64 
Appendix A: Demographics Charts 
1. Gender Distribution 
Gender
100% 91%
80%
60%
40%
20% 9%
0%
Male Female
 
2. Race Distribution 
Race
70%
58%
60%
50%
40%
30% 25%
20% 15%
10% 3%
0%
Asian/Pacific Islander Black Hispanic White
 
3. Age Distribution 
 65 
% of Total Videos % of Total Videos
Age 
50% 47% 45%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10% 8%
5%
0%
18-24 25-34 35-44
 
4. Race Distribution 
Race
70%
58%
60%
50%
40%
30% 25%
20% 15%
10% 3%
0%
Asian/Pacific Islander Black Hispanic White
 
5. Average Engagement Distribution 
 66 
% of Total Videos
Average Engagement
450,000 415,093
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000 132,313
100,000
50,000
549
0
Followers Likes Comments
 
6. Average Engagement by Gender 
Average Engagement by Gender
600,000 576,589
500,000 433,104
400,000
300,000
200,000 136,976
100,000 83,525
875 516
0
Male Female
Followers Likes Comments
 
7. Average Engagement by Race 
 67 
Amount of Engagement
Average Engagement by Race
692,791
700,000
600,000 523,628
500,000
400,000 365,474
300,000
198,736
200,000 159,529 121,651 107,367
100,000 66,349
765 629 521 458
0
Asian/Pacific Black Hispanic White
Islander
Followers Likes Comments
 
8. Average Engagement by Age 
Average Engagement by Age
700,000 674,050
600,000 544,712
500,000
400,000
300,000 244,785
200,000 142,009 120,929 140,263
100,000
494 488 1,216
0
18-24 35-34 35-44
Followers Likes Comments
 
9. Followers by Variation 
 68 
Amount of Engagement Amount of Engagement
Followers
1,800,000 1,620,628
1,600,000
1,400,000
1,200,000 1,074,360
1,000,000
800,000
600,000 388,953 344,610203,657
400,000 121,183 302,875
103,148 205,541
200,000 111,068 59,083 70,538
0
 
10. Likes by Variation 
Likes
350,000 316,537
300,000 276,967 285,138
255,761
250,000 215,986
200,000
150,000 98,810
95,486
100,000 74,593 78,631
51,056 58,665
50,000 19,150
0
 
11. Comments by Variation 
 69 
Comments
2,000 1,836
1,800
1,600
1,400
1,200 1,026
1,000 870 803
800 582
600 486 423 467
400 246 303
200 76
160
0
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
Appendix B: Captions, Hashtags, and Handles 
 
Figure 1. Sponsored Ad 
  
Figure 2. Unemployed user’s skincare products 
 
 71 
Figure 3. Entrepreneur describing himself as a “$20K per month 21-year-old automation agency 
owner” 
 
Figure 4. #dontwork2jobs caption 
 
Figure 5. #brokemoms caption 
 
Figure 6. Waged employee’s captions 
 
Figure 7. Backmarket Ad 
 
Figure 8. Labcorp Ad 
 
Figure 9. Realistic morning of a 27-year-old with a normal job 
 
Figure 10. Positioning self as a recruiter in handle/username 
 
 
 
 72 
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