TikToking Theory

Media Ecology

“This French philosopher thinks we’re living in a simulation. What does this have to do with Sydney Sweeney’s jeans?”⊕ Apparently there is no way to easily prevent TikTok autoplay... A somewhat nefarious feature. My apologies in advance. is quite the hook, but not out of place in a louisamunchtheory video. A PhD student and teacher in Critical Theory, @louisamunchtheory shares complex discussions on pedagogy and theory through book recommendations, politics, and culture. Her snappy, engaging, clips dress complex expositions of topics such as neoliberalism, marxism, and fascism with contemporaneous pop-culture relevance, all delivered in monologue with a disarming accent.

Many TikTok accounts chase the ebb and flow of trends, memes, and news, moulding themselves video-by-video in an attempt to appease the ephemeral cravings of an ever-shifting algorithmically directed audience. In contrast, Louisa’s content falls into the category of accounts that have identified a clear niche and continuously explore within the bounds of that space, stretching it at times, but never straying far. The majority of Louisa’s videos follow a clear format: 1. a provocative hook incorporating current affairs, 2. a statement of her credentials, 3. reference to relevant theorists and their books, 4. an explanatory monologue on topics of relevance in critical theory, from politics, education, economics, and culture. Woven through it all is her own identity as that of a Post Doctoral student in critical theory, an identity she anchors firmly in nearly every video.

Where TikTok is of course infamous for its short-form content, Louisa’s videos are comparatively lengthy offerings, ranging from 2 to 7 minutes a piece. ⊕ A surprising length for a platform where 15 second videos are commonplace. According to SocialInsider, a social media analytics company, this may not be the case. Though 15 seconds remains a key length for optimizing viewer engagement, the “watch time” of a video is an equally important metric in a video’s algorithmic success (Lown, 2025). By this metric, Louisa’s videos may be less subversive in their length and structure than one might initially assume, maximizing view length through lengthy but engaging videos. The mere existence of these metrics and strategies for algorithmic appeasement are indicative of the extensive remediation TikTok enacts on video creation, causing creators to mould and adapt their content to ensure algorithmic success.

While Louisa produces content within the niche of critical theory, it is catered to a much more broad and diverse audience than merely other scholars. The expansive potential reach that TikTok enables can cause creators to err on the side of simplification if they wish for the platform’s black-boxed algorithm to spread their content. For Louisa, this means the majority of her videos are composed of highly-engaging, topical, and accessible discussions on key critical theory concepts, figures, and literature. Loupessis & Intahchomphoo (2025) warn that the framing of complex issues, such as climate change, through “viral-hooks” can risk trivializing them completely. In this regard, Louisa’s content is in a precarious position. The TikTok-remediated presentation of educational content could serve to detract and dilute the importance or urgency of the ideas being shared. The majority of topics in Louisa’s videos fit this category, from the rise of fascism and anti-intellectualism to the biopolitics of migrants - all pressing and complex topics.

While McLuhan’s conception of “the medium is the message” (1964) is inherent to TikTok’s remediation, so too is Latour’s (1992) descriptions of delegation and prescription. The TikTok algorithm has been ‘delegated’ the task of recommendation, an automation necessary to achieve the limitless scrolling and engagement of the platform. TikTok then prescribes back onto its delegates certain characteristics that optimize for the platform’s primary goal of maximal engagement. Louisa’s videos are suffused with evidence of these prescriptions, and for good reason. These are not viral dance-videos or comedy skits, they are complex educational videos remediated through a platform that would normally discriminate (in the Latourian/Winner (1980) sense of the word) against them.⊕ The ‘hook’ and length of the videos are certainly prescribed, and there are other characteristics. In every video, Louisa introduces herself and restates her credentials as a PhD student and teacher of critical theory. Repetition in general shapes much of Louisa’s theory-making, with identity, key definitions, and political thoughts recurring from video to video. When watching her videos in sequence, this becomes incredibly repetitive, but in the context of the TikTok algorithm’s dissemination, any one of Louisa’s videos could be recommended to a new audience. Every video thus represents a potential introduction requisite of a good first impression.

TikTok has been delegated the role of moderator. Calhoun & Fawcett (2023) describes how all content on the platform is run through automated moderation, with infringements on community guidelines rendering the content ineligible for algorithmic recommendation or account strikes. In an effort to avoid this, the authors describe the creative self-censorship TikTok prescribes onto its content. In a mildly salacious August 9th, 2025 video on neoliberalism and pornographic actress Bonnie Blue, Louisa exhibits several instances of what Calhoun & Fawcett refer to as “linguistic innovation” when she replaces the word “Sex” with “Smex”. Similarly, in an October 13th, 2025 video on philosopher Hannah Arendt, Louisa censors the name of Nazi Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in the video’s captions, replacing it with “A*olf”. This modification is likely performed out of an abundance of caution. The opaque nature of the TikTok algorithm has lead to what Calhoun & Fawcett describe as “algorithmic folk theories”(p.8), as there is no public list of banned words or topics. In this case, there is clearly a concern for moderation or algorithmic deprioritization on any Adolf Hitler-related language.

With posts only going back to July 9th, 2025, one can’t make any observations on the immediate effects of the 2024 presidential election on Louisa’s feed, and the majority of her contemporary political videos centre on UK politics. It seems as though her videos are a response to a larger trend of cultural deterioration which the American election was only a component of. There is a sense of urgency to her monologues, imploring awareness, education, and action against repressive societal systems and in response to rising anti-intellectualism. Giroux (2004) describes this public theory-making as one “providing a language of resistance and possibility” (p. 76).

As is evidenced by the videos of @louisamunchtheory, the remediating effects of TikTok on educational theory are extensive. Complex and dense topics, traditionally sequestered to academic circles, are prescribed new layers of accessibility through engaging delivery. These effects serve to massively broaden the audience for educational discussion, as its spread is massively accelerated by the network effects of the TikTok algorithm. The affordances of TikTok also have a diminutive effect, supplanting the formality and rigour of typical theory with enticing hooks, contextualization through popular culture, and self-censorship in the face of opaque moderation.

References

Calhoun, K., & Fawcett, A. (2023). “They Edited Out her Nip Nops”: Linguistic Innovation as Textual Censorship Avoidance on TikTok. Language@Internet, 21, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.14434/li.v21.37371

Giroux, H. A. (2004). Cultural studies, public pedagogy, and the responsibility of intellectuals. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1479142042000180926

Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In W. E. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change (pp. 225–258). MIT Press.

Louisamunchtheory. (2025, August 9). Maggie Thatcher and Bonnie B have everything in common [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@louisamunchtheory/video/7536581478445157634

Louisamunchtheory. (2025, August 13). Necropolitics, biopolitics and the “stop the boats” crowd [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@louisamunchtheory/video/7538069473090096406

Louisamunchtheory. (2025, September 9). IN DEFENCE OF HIGHER EDUCATION [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@louisamunchtheory/video/7548045797800168726

Louisamunchtheory. (2025, October 13). The Banality of Evil [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@louisamunchtheory/video/7560799905560710422

Louisamunchtheory (@louisamunchtheory). (n.d.). TikTok. Retrieved October 27, 2025, from https://www.tiktok.com/@louisamunchtheory

Loupessis, I., & Intahchomphoo, C. (2025). Framing the climate: How TikTok’s algorithm shapes environmental discourse. Telematics and Informatics, 102, 102329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2025.102329

Lown, P. (2025, September 30). How Long Can a TikTok Video Be and What’s the Best Length. https://www.socialinsider.io/blog/how-long-are-tiktok-videos/

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. http://archive.org/details/ETC0624

Winner, L. (1980). Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121–136. https://doi.org/10.2307/20024652

AI Statement

As always, I find AI a very useful tool for research and feedback. For this assignment, I asked Claude to summarize my AI usage: “You used AI as a theoretical sounding board to clarify complex academic concepts (remediation, McLuhan’s media theory, determinism) and test your interpretations against assignment requirements. You pushed back on my suggestions to ensure your analysis stayed focused on the medium rather than the creator, and used the conversation to work through conceptual tensions like agency versus constraint and theory versus practice. Essentially, you leveraged AI for conceptual clarification and analytical refinement rather than content generation.”