Folklore Theses and Dissertations

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Women Over 50 Club: Age and TikTok Dancing in the COVID-19 Pandemic
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-10) Lutnesky, Ariel; Wolf, Juan
With the COVID-19 pandemic came the rise of TikTok, a video-making and -sharing app where users often choreograph and post short dances to song clips. TikTok is commonly associated with teens; however, this overlooks that there are many older women on the app, identifying through hashtags such as #over50club and #grandmasoftiktok. The question this paper aims to answer is how TikTok dancing videos created by women over 50 represent their community while navigating concepts of success. I employ Diane Goldstein’s folklorist’s toolbox and Richard Bauman’s ideas of framing while keeping in mind the contexts in which these videos came—the COVID-19 pandemic and stereotypes that older women face. I categorize TikTok videos under five subgenres: knowledge, age, confidence/self-positivity, calls to community, and amusement. Women over 50 use dancing videos to play with and reject stereotypes associated with each subgenre (except calls to community), claiming autonomy in narratives about their community.