The Power of TikTok: Representing COVID-19 Pandemic Life for Generation Z

Oct 27

The Power of TikTok: Representing COVID-19 Pandemic Life for Generation Z*

Peyton Price

Pioneer Academics

Word count = 9,502

* Peyton Price can be reached at peyton.mackenzie05@gmail.com. Peyton would like to express her appreciation for mentorship from Professor Jamie K. McCallum.

THE POWER OF TIKTOK: REPRESENTING COVID-19 PANDEMIC LIFE FOR GENERATION Z

This paper seeks to understand why and how TikTok represented COVID-19 pandemic life for Generation Z, specifically in the United States. In the literature review, I analyze the unique nature of TikTok and why it has the power to represent Generation Z’s pandemic life. In order to further understand how TikTok did this, I analyzed 75 TikTok videos under the search results of “Quarantine 2020,” “Virtual School,” and “Pandemic Teens.” From these videos, we learn that Generation Z used TikTok to connect with each other about the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the 75 TikTok videos used a combination of humor, relatability, and vulnerability in order to communicate about the pandemic in a way that connected with others. Through all of this, we see that the TikTok videos reveal valuable insights into Generation Z’s COVID-19 pandemic experience.

Keywords: TikTok, COVID-19, Generation Z, teenagers

THE POWER OF TIKTOK: REPRESENTING COVID-19 PANDEMIC LIFE FOR GENERATION Z

I still remember the day I downloaded the social media app TikTok. It was April 2020, and I was spending the final months of my 8th-grade year quarantined. I was bored of being stuck at home, and all my friends were sending me videos they saw on TikTok. I finally decided to download TikTok, and ever since, I’ve been fascinated by the app. During the difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok was a form of entertainment for me, my friends, and teenagers across the United States. And, more importantly, it was a way for Generation Z to connect with each other during a time of isolation.

Ever since I downloaded TikTok, I’ve been fascinated by the app's ability to connect. Whether it be connecting people with similar interests and experiences or simply connecting an entire generation through a trending sound or dance, TikTok brings people together. Specifically, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I loved to see how other people my age were dealing with the struggles of things like isolation and virtual school, and it made me feel less alone in a time of quarantine.

Now, in 2022, I had the opportunity to conduct research about the COVID-19 pandemic and its sociological impacts. From my experience as a teenager living in the United States, TikTok’s role in the pandemic life of Generation Z cannot be overstated. Because of that, I knew that I wanted to use my perspective as a teenager to research why and how TikTok represented pandemic life for Generation Z. This research paper begins with a literature review that examines previous research and sources related to the topic of this paper. Then, this paper includes an original data section where I analyzed 75 TikTok videos that help to uncover more about why and in what ways TikTok represented COVID-19 pandemic life for Generation Z.

METHODS

There were several steps I took in order to write this research paper. First, I knew that I wanted to conduct research on TikTok and the COVID-19 pandemic, so I looked at previous research on this topic. That research allowed me to determine my specific focus on Generation Z and COVID-19 content on TikTok. Then, I wrote the literature review, where I included research and articles that provided background information on this topic. The literature review examined TikTok’s growth, algorithm, cultural impact, and potentially polarizing nature. The literature review also examined research on COVID-19-related TikTok content. Next, I analyzed 75 TikTok videos. I chose three searches, “Quarantine 2020,” “Virtual School,” and “Pandemic Teens” and looked at the top 25 TikTok videos under each one. When analyzing these videos, I looked for common themes that revealed more about how young people were using TikTok to communicate about the COVID-19 pandemic. For each video, I recorded the content of the video, the caption of the video, the age of the creator, the like and view count (as of August 2022), the date posted, and some of the top comments under the video. I also corrected grammatical errors in the TikTok videos, captions, and comments.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this literature review, research and writings are explored to understand TikTok and its relationship with Generation Z and with the COVID-19 pandemic. First, this review looks at general statistics around TikTok, its growth, and its users. News on TikTok is also discussed. Then, research about the unique nature of TikTok, its cultural relevance, and its power to influence cultural trends are analyzed. Next, research on the TikTok “For You Page” and the TikTok algorithm is analyzed. After that, the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic on Generation Z specifically is discussed. This literature review then examines research about the COVID-19 pandemic and its connection to TikTok. Studies about COVID-19 content on TikTok are discussed as well as how the nature and algorithm of TikTok may encourage misinformation and polarization. All of this is analyzed in order to show the significance of TikTok in understanding the lives and cultural trends of Generation Z. Because of that, COVID-19-related content on TikTok reveals important information on COVID-19 pandemic life for Generation Z.

With over 1.3 billion monthly users (28% of which are under 18, and 63% are under 29), it is clear that TikTok is dominating the world, especially that of young people (Ruby 2022). TikTok is a place where users can post videos ranging from seconds long to 3 minutes, and these videos can be about anything. In order to understand why TikTok represented pandemic life for teenagers, we must first understand the growth of TikTok, how it is changing the way young people consume news and media, and what makes it a unique platform.

The app Musical.ly was merged into TikTok in 2018 (Jennings 2019). Since then, TikTok has experienced huge growth and studies and statistics show this. TikTok had 657 million downloads in 2018, 693 million downloads in 2019, 850 million downloads in 2020, and then it dipped down to 656 million downloads in 2021 (Ruby 2022). In addition to that, the average time spent monthly on TikTok went from 731.6 minutes in February 2020 to 858 minutes in March 2020 (Ruby 2022). So, it is clear that the heart of TikTok’s growth was around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and these two things are very connected. For example, COVID-19 and quarantine influenced the content on TikTok, as this paper will discuss later.

It is clear that there are a ton of people on TikTok and that these people are spending a lot of time on the platform. Specifically, TikTok has been incredibly popular with young people and members of Generation Z, which includes people ages 10-25 as of 2022 (Beresford Research) . In June 2020, which was also one of the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok users ages 4-18 were averaging 82 minutes a day on TikTok, and by the end of 2021, it was 91 minutes per day (Perez 2022). This is a very significant amount of time for kids and teenagers to be spending on a single app, which is why it is very important to consider TikTok when we are considering many things that have to do with young people. If TikTok is a significant part of young people’s lives, it certainly has the power to influence them and the way they view the world.

Because of the growth of TikTok and the amount of time young people are spending on it, it makes sense that young people would be getting a lot of news-like information from TikTok. Consuming news on TikTok is very different from consuming news on actual news outlets and other social media platforms. An article from The Guardian discusses how news on TikTok doesn’t have to be seen as a bad thing, and that it is just a new form of journalism reaching many people (Stokel-Walker 2022). News on TikTok has grown, and “the growth in news consumed via TikTok is being driven mainly by younger age groups - half of users consuming news on the platform are aged 16-24” (Sillito 2022). Teenagers are getting their news from TikTok, as well as their entertainment.

The question is, though, besides it reaching a ton of people, what makes TikTok so unique and popular? There has been a lot of research done on the unique aspects of TikTok and specifically how TikTok influences culture. TikTok has had so much success because the trending content “has become the origin of cultural conversation in the mainstream” (Stokel-Walker 2020). TikTok is not just an app that people use, but it defines the culture that people live in, and this is especially true for the large number of young people using TikTok. As we learn from MIIC Blog (2021), many of the biggest songs of the past few years were popularized on TikTok, such as “driver’s license” by Olivia Rodrigo, which blew up on TikTok before spending 8 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. This article also talks about how TikTok creators are becoming the celebrities of Gen Z, with teenagers such as Charli D’Amelio becoming TikTok’s most followed creator and one of the biggest names among young people just by posting dance videos (MIIC Blog 2021). The article also explains how TikTok videos labeled with the hashtag “BookTok” are responsible for many of the most popular books over the past few years (MIIC Blog 2021). It is clear that TikTok has the power to define cultural trends, and it especially has done this with teenage pop culture.

The user experience of TikTok differs from other platforms because users are spending a majority of time on the “For You” page and not the “Following” page, so most of the content people consume on TikTok comes from complete strangers (We Are Social 2020). This is very different from a social platform like Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, on which you spend most of your time looking at content from the people you follow. The idea of the “For You” page being filled with content made by people that you are not following is significant because the content is ever-changing and is in-tune with the current trends that you are interested in, whether that be a new album or TV series that was just released. Also, users’ “For You” pages are often filled with current news events such as COVID-19, which will be explored more in this paper. Closely connected to the fact that users’ “For You” pages are filled with complete strangers is the fact that anybody can go viral on TikTok, not just celebrities. This actually widens the amount of content that TikTok users can view, because anybody who can make a funny, insightful, relatable, or interesting video can realistically go viral. This causes more users to feel motivated to create high-quality content on TikTok that will be shown to specific people who might find their content compelling. This all has to do with the most unique aspect of TikTok: the user is not the one choosing the content they view; the app is. And, because of the TikTok algorithm, the app can tell what a user wants to view even better than the user themself.

Studies have been done on the TikTok algorithm. To start, one study says that the videos and interactions on TikTok “depend on individually customized video feeds curated by the app’s recommendation algorithm” (Klug et al. 2021). Another study talks specifically about how the TikTok algorithm is what makes TikTok different from other social media platforms: “TikTok unprecedentedly centers algorithmically driven feeds and algorithmically driven experiences. On TikTok, unlike on other platforms, the user experience is obviously, unambiguously, and explicitly driven by what is commonly called the ‘For You’ algorithm” (Bhandari and Bimo 2022). As previously mentioned, users spend the majority of their time on TikTok on the “For You” page, and that is because the algorithm puts content on the “For You” page that is exactly what the user wants to see.

So, the amount of time spent on TikTok, the way TikTok influences cultural trends, and the personalized content on TikTok through the algorithm make it clear that young people feel deeply connected to the content they consume on TikTok. Young people feel as though they can learn about the current trends and see content specifically catered to their interests. It makes sense that an app that makes young people feel this way would achieve such great growth and popularity.

Now, we will examine research on COVID-19 and Generation Z. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a significant part of the world since early 2020. For teenagers, COVID-19 was a world-changing event that took place during the difficult years of adolescence. One study talks about this and states that “we believe the COVID-19 pandemic is the most formative Generation Defining Moment that has shaped Gen Z at this critical time in their transition into adulthood. Gen Z is already sharing the impact of COVID-19 in our research interviews with them about their schooling, work, money, health, family, and attitudes toward the future” (Villa, Dorsey, and Boucher 2020). It is clear that COVID-19 has been a defining life event for many people, but Gen Z is uniquely impacted. So, if we want to learn more about how Gen Z has experienced this “Generation Defining Moment,” TikTok is a great place to look because we already know that it is full of content that is relevant to Gen Z. There are many studies that have been conducted analyzing the relationship between TikTok and COVID-19.

First, TikTok was a significant factor in “youth resocialization in a pandemic society” because of the large number of teenagers using TikTok during quarantine (Southwick et al. 2021). The original TikTok video analysis discussed later in this paper expands on ways in which teenagers resocialized and how they shared pandemic experiences on TikTok. Before that, we will discuss other research analyzing pandemic-related content posted on TikTok.

One study did a general analysis of COVID-19 information on TikTok and discusses the importance of TikTok in spreading information because of the number of users and COVID-19 content (Li et al. 2021). This study also says that “public health agencies should be aware of the opportunity of TikTok in health communication and create audience-centered risk communication to engage and inform community members” (Li et al. 2021). TikTok is not just a platform for meaningless videos, but it can actually influence public opinions on infinitely important issues like COVID-19, and this study acknowledges that.

A previously mentioned study “...coded 750 videos…one in four videos tagged with #coronavirus featured health-related content such as featuring objects such as face masks, hand sanitizer, and other cleaning products. Most videos evoked ‘humor/parody,’ whereas 15% and 6% evoked ‘fear’ and ‘empathy’, respectively” (Southwick et al. 2021). Based on this data, we can see that on TikTok, humor in videos was very common and most videos were meant to evoke emotion, whether that be humor, fear, or empathy. In the analysis of TikTok videos later in this paper, we also see that emotion-evoking videos are exceedingly common. This reveals that TikTok’s main purpose is not just for sharing information, but for entertaining and evoking emotion. Another study analyzing content posted by healthcare workers found “that health information sharing practices on TikTok use playfulness, memes, and other platform elements, alongside familiar techniques of highlighting one's expertise and relatability as a healthcare worker” (Southerton 2021). So, even content created by expert healthcare workers still used humor, emotional connection, and relatability. From everything we’ve seen about TikTok thus far, it is clear that most videos include these qualities, and this is true for informational COVID-19 content as well.

One study analyzed TikTok videos from March 17 to May 20, 2020, and states that “in the U.S., TikTok surged in popularity as the COVID-19 virus spread nationally. TikTok posts may both reflect and shape young people's perceptions of the pandemic” (Unni and Weinstein 2021). This shows the importance of TikTok in the lives of young people, especially when looked at during the time of COVID-19. This study also says that many of the videos analyzed “featured details of everyday circumstances and/or relatable commentary on Pandemic Life” (Unni and Weinstein 2021). Once again, this is a pattern throughout studies that analyze TikTok videos about COVID-19, and it is something we see during the original analysis of TikTok videos later on in this paper. Relatable content about everyday life in the times of COVID-19 was common on TikTok.

Continuing with relatable, everyday life content, the virtual school experience of young people was also shared on TikTok. There was a study done on TikTok and online learning during COVID-19, which is one of the topics that will be further explored in the original data analysis in this paper (Literat 2021). This study explains how young people participating in online school were very open about their experiences and struggles with online learning. TikTok was a place where young people felt comfortable posting relatable content and sharing their honest feelings, and this is a theme we see throughout studies about content on TikTok.

Another study analyzing TikTok videos about COVID-19 found that “6.33% of videos were filmed by health care professionals…2.66% were filmed by young adult patients tracking their recovery journeys…15.66% of videos communicated pragmatic health information… .66% provided misleading or inaccurate health advice, with the remaining videos depicting everyday quarantine activities in a satirical manner” (Ostrovsky and Chen 2020). So, multiple studies are finding that relatable and humorous content was the most common, but there certainly was still content made by health care professionals and content with actual health information. This study also mentions “misleading or inaccurate health advice” and touches on the importance of acknowledging the way young people’s opinions on the pandemic can be influenced by TikTok: “an increased understanding of COVID-19 portrayal on social media is valuable in deciphering young adult sentiment on the virus and how their views on the seriousness of the pandemic may be colored by the variety of messages they receive about it” (Ostrovsky and Chen 2020).

Because anyone can post on TikTok and anyone can go viral, it is not surprising that there would be a likelihood of misinformation as well as simply a variety of opinions about the pandemic. An article from Rolling Stone details many different COVID-19 conspiracy theories that were shared on TikTok (Dickson 2020). For instance, some of these conspiracy theories try to downplay the seriousness of COVID-19 and spread incorrect vaccine information.

That leads to another topic that has been explored in studies: COVID-19 vaccine content on TikTok. The COVID-19 vaccine was a highly debated topic throughout all forms of media and communication. There was a study done on general conspiracy theories around COVID-19 vaccines and the negative impacts those can have on the health and safety of people (Ullah et al. 2021).

And, because TikTok mirrored a lot of COVID-19-related content we saw in other forms of media, there were similar vaccine conspiracies on TikTok. One study coded TikTok videos about vaccines and found videos encouraging COVID-19 vaccination, discouraging COVID-19 vaccination, as well as videos with incorrect information about the availability of vaccines (Basch et al. 2021). There was also another study that focused on how vaccine information on TikTok may be influencing people’s opinions (Wang and He 2022).

On social media in general, there has been a lot of toxicity around the issue of masks. One study “investigated the role that toxicity plays in the online discourse around wearing face masks” and showed how toxic language connected to pro-mask and anti-mask content, specifically on Twitter (Pascual-Ferrá et al. 2021). This study also talks about how this toxicity and disagreement around masks on social media could cause confusion and put people at risk. This leads back to the idea that what is shared on social media matters because it has the potential to impact people’s views. This is especially important with COVID-19, where misinformation could negatively impact people and put their health at risk.

Particularly in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic was politicized early on and quickly became a polarizing topic. There was polarization around the seriousness of the pandemic, vaccines, masks, and more. One study analyzed the extent to which political polarization exists in the US and how this relates to COVID-19 and says, “Despite calls for political consensus, there is growing evidence that the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized in the US” (Kerr, Panagopoulos, and van der Linden 2021). Of course, if something becomes extremely political, that is likely manifesting on social media as well.

A study shows that “COVID-19 chatter in the United States is largely shaped by political polarization” (Jiang et al. 2020). This study focuses on politicized COVID-19 discussions on Twitter. This study doesn’t mention TikTok, but its results are still relevant to social media in general because there are similarities in content across all different platforms. Even though there is less research around COVID-19 political polarization on TikTok, the very nature of the TikTok algorithm potentially supports group polarization. The book The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think relates to this idea (Pariser 2011). A summary of this book says that “the term ‘filter bubble’ refers to the results of the algorithms that dictate what we encounter online. According to Eli Pariser, those algorithms create ‘a unique universe of information for each of us … which fundamentally alters the way we encounter ideas and information.’...That might not sound so bad, but filter bubbles create echo chambers. We assume that everyone thinks like us, and we forget that other perspectives exist” (Farnam Street). This exact idea of the “filter bubble” is something that is happening on TikTok because of how the algorithm picks exactly what users see. One article actually explains how the TikTok algorithm causes polarization (Wuh 2021). Because users get content so in tune with their beliefs and interests on their “For You” pages, users end up in their own bubble of TikTok filled with people who agree with them, leading to more polarization.

All of the research analyzed in this literature review helps to answer the question of why and how TikTok represented pandemic life for Geneartion Z. TikTok is an incredibly popular platform that has a ton of cultural relevance. TikTok also has a unique algorithm that creates personalized content for each user, which causes users to connect with the content they see. This makes TikTok a platform where Generation Z feels comfortable sharing emotions and experiences and relating with others. There was COVID-19 content shared on TikTok, and we saw that this content was often humorous, relatable, and emotion-evoking. This supports the idea that TikTok shows us a simplified and often lighthearted version of the COVID-19 pandemic experience. In the next section of this paper, we will discuss more COVID-19-related TikTok videos to help further answer the question of why and how TikTok was able to represent pandemic life for Generation Z.

ANALYSIS OF TIKTOK VIDEOS

“Quarantine 2020” TikTok Videos

This first section of the analysis of TikTok videos is about the top 25 TikTok videos that showed up after searching “Quarantine 2020.” The top videos that show up are not in order of the most liked or viewed. The views of these videos ranged from 61.3k to 17.6M. The date posted of these videos ranges from September 28, 2020, to July 15, 2022. So, none of these videos were posted during the early months of quarantine because most were posted in 2021 or 2022. Because of that, the purpose of analyzing these videos is not to see what videos were made during the initial 2020 quarantine. Rather, these videos reveal to us how young people reflect on the early days of quarantine in 2020 as well as the significant role that TikTok played in young people’s quarantine experiences. In addition to that, we also see many videos representing a sense of nostalgia towards the 2020 quarantine - some in a positive, normal way, and others in an arguably insensitive and out-of-touch way considering the tragedies that occurred in 2020 due to COVID-19.

Generation Z is the largest age group on TikTok, and they were responsible for the creation of a majority of these 25 videos. With the exception of a few videos that didn’t show a creator, all of these TikTok videos were made by people that either appeared to be or certainly were in their teens or 20s, which would put a large percentage of them in Generation Z. There is no way to know the age demographic of the viewers of any given TikTok video, but because of the ages of the creators and that the content was oriented around Generation Z pop culture and trends, we can assume many of the people watching these videos are also a part of Generation Z.

There were many similarities between these 25 videos under “Quarantine 2020.” To start, 11 of the 25 videos used the abbreviation “POV,” which “stands for ‘Point of View.’ These videos treat the audience as if they are watching a clip directly play out from their own perspective, rather than as a third-person observer.” (Galloway 2021). This is a very common thing people say on social media platforms, especially TikTok.

One of the TikTok videos with “POV” is captioned “POV: it’s early quarantine” and then shows several images and videos of common and popular things during quarantine (Jamie 2022). This includes images of homemade desserts, face masks, squishy toys, and empty shelves. The video also references the Netflix series Tiger King and Outer Banks, which were both released around the start of the first quarantine for COVID-19. This video had 22.6k likes. A comment under this video says, “Such scary times but I miss the simple days of staying home and having no plans.” This type of comment recognizing the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic but also recognizing feelings of nostalgia towards some aspects of quarantine was a common opinion represented by many of these TikTok videos.

Nine out of the 25 videos were specifically about music/TikTok dances. Especially in its earlier days, TikTok was known as a dance app where people would make up dances to certain songs. There were many TikTok songs and dance trends popularized during quarantine in 2020, and that’s why so many of these videos reflect on this. One video posted on June 13, 2022, had 698.1k views and features a DJ playing six popular songs from the first lockdown (El Greco 2022). JoJo Siwa, a famous 19-year-old who was first known for being on the show Dance Moms, posted a TikTok video on November 6, 2021, that features her dancing to a mash-up of TikTok dance trends from 2020 (Siwa 2021). She captioned the video, “I. MISS. EARLY. 2020. QUARANTINE. TIK TOK. DANCES.” This video received 2.7 million likes, and though JoJo Siwa has 43.2 million followers, it is clear that many people also remember dance trends from quarantine. During quarantine, many people spent time watching all these dance trends to popular songs, and now that it is a couple of years later, people are reflecting on those fun videos.

Six of the 11 “POV” videos were specifically a “POV” of scrolling through TikTok during 2020. One of these videos shows a screen-recording of someone scrolling through common TikTok videos of 2020 with text that says, “POV it’s 2020, it’s the first lockdown and you’re scrolling through TikTok” (Cole 2021). This video, uploaded on December 20, 2021, had 570.2k views and 81.3k likes. One comment under this video says, “This makes me feel a certain type of way, I don’t know, nostalgic, but I don’t know why.” Comments like this reflect a tone of nostalgia toward life in quarantine, but many people are not really sure why they feel this way considering all the negative aspects of quarantine.

Comments and videos with this type of message show people expressing their confusing emotions towards the pandemic and quarantine. People are clearly comfortable sharing these thoughts and are able to relate to others. These emotions of feeling nostalgic towards a significant event of the past while still knowing that the event was difficult in many ways is a reasonable and normal way to think about an event like quarantine.

Not all of the videos were like this, though, and some had messages that are clearly a more negative and controversial way to think about quarantine and the COVID-19 pandemic. One video (posted on January 28, 2022 and recieved 986.1k likes) was made by a young adult woman and features her dancing in her bedroom to the song “Supalonely” by Benee, a popular TikTok song in 2020 (Mafe 2022). Over the video, we see text that says, “The way we took quarantine for granted makes me want to cry. There’s literally nothing I miss more than the beginning of 2020. Quarantine felt like a well-deserved break, time was not real, whipped coffee, this, so many memories but none at the same time, our only responsibility was to stay home…and yet we still complained” (Mafe 2022). Now, this messaging comes across quite differently than some of the previous videos and comments we looked at. Those videos and comments express a sense of nostalgia but also are either acknowledging the difficulties of COVID-19 or are not totally sure why they feel nostalgia considering the many bad aspects of 2020. This video, though, is specifically saying that we shouldn’t have been complaining during quarantine because life was good and easy. This was clearly not the case for most people who experienced great tragedy, financial difficulties, and other problems due to isolation. Now, the comments under this video had people disagreeing with what she was saying, such as a comment that says, “The privilege to say this is absolutely insane” and “Umm sis..totally ruined our economy and took hundreds of thousands of lives.” But there were still comments agreeing with her. This TikTok is an example of the way that an insensitive opinion about COVID-19 can go viral and cause toxicity and disagreement.

These top TikTok videos under “Quarantine 2020” show us many things about why and in what ways TikTok represented pandemic life for Generation Z. First off, the videos reflecting on pop culture, music, and TikTok trends from the pandemic show how culturally relevant TikTok is. Because of this cultural relevance, TikTok represented pop culture for teens during the pandemic. Also, the videos showing a “POV” of scrolling through TikTok and videos of people doing old TikTok trends show that being on TikTok was a significant part of the 2020 quarantine for many members of Generation Z. Many of the TikTok videos and comments have people sharing their emotions of nostalgia towards quarantine, so it is clear that people feel comfortable sharing their experiences and relating with others. Because of that, TikTok can represent Generation Z’s emotions around the pandemic. We also saw an example of when a shared emotion about the pandemic was insensitive and caused controversy and disagreement. The COVID-19 pandemic is often a polarizing and controversial topic because of its complexity, so it makes sense that this is represented on TikTok as well.

“Virtual School” TikTok Videos

For this category, the top 25 videos that showed up after searching “Virtual School” on TikTok were analyzed. As with the previous section, these are not necessarily the top-liked videos - they are just the top search results. These videos ranged from 13.6k views to 13.6 million views and were all posted between August 2020 and July 2022. Nearly all of these videos were made by either high school or college students, and a few of the videos were made by teachers or parents. The purpose of looking at videos under “Virtual School” is to understand how people, mainly Generation Z, were using TikTok to communicate about a significant aspect of their lives that has been unique to pandemic life. Virtual school was something that most people hadn’t experienced until COVID-19 in 2020, so the videos about this on TikTok reveal a lot about what that experience has been like.

To start, five of the 25 videos featured a student showing their “day in the life” of virtual school. These videos showed a student recording themself getting ready in the morning, joining virtual classes, doing homework, and going about their other daily activities. For example, one video posted in August 2020 features a teenage girl showing her day of virtual school (Josie Alesia 2020). This video had 89.9k likes. An example of a comment under this video is “You guys get ready? I just put a hoody on wh-.” This comment shows how people are sharing their virtual school experiences in a humorous way and relating with others.

That leads to the next theme throughout the TikTok videos, which is humor. In the literature review, we saw that humor was common in COVID-19-related videos, and we see that proven true in many of these 25 videos. One humorous video is captioned “POV: you’re in an online school call” (Witch 2022). This video was made by a teenage boy who recorded a Zoom room where there were a few students (all played by him) doing various distracting activities. The teacher (also played by the boy) was dramatically yelling at all the students (Witch 2022). This video had 5.4 million views and 785.2k likes. This video is a comical skit exaggerating the reality of virtual school, and that was a common type of video posted. Some of the humorous videos, though, are not exaggerations but are actual recordings of real virtual classes. One example of this was posted on September 1, 2021 (although the caption implies the video previously went viral on the creator’s old account) and had over 635.8k views (Dae 2021). This video was made by a teenage boy who was recording his virtual class. In the video, the teacher of the class says, “Sorry, my internet is not being kind to me” and then a few students laugh. One student moves his hands around while laughing and accidentally shows he’s holding a video game controller (meaning he’s playing video games in class) and the teacher calls him out in a humorous way (Dae 2021). This is just one example of people posting clips from their real virtual school experiences for humor and for others to relate to.

Not all videos were comical and lighthearted, though. There were several videos that featured teenagers expressing their feelings towards virtual school and the difficulties they experienced doing virtual school. This was reflected in the comment sections of these videos as well. One video made by a teenage girl and posted in December 2021, is a great example of this (Nina 2021). This video had 58.0k likes. In the video, the girl is filming herself and the text over her says, “Why don’t you want to go back to virtual school it was nice?.” Then, she mouths the lyrics to the song playing in the background, which are, “So how should I begin this?” So, she’s implying that there are so many reasons why she doesn’t want to do virtual school again. She also captioned the video “if I go back to virtual I will LOSE it,” so it is clear she had strong feelings against virtual school (Nina 2021). Many of the comments under this video were other teenagers expressing their similar feelings such as, “I finally got in a good routine and met a new group of friends that's so fun I can't go back to sitting in front of a computer and not leaving my house,” “I literally cheated all of virtual, learned nothing all year, and had no friends…yeah no thanks!” and “It was the worst time of my life.” Not everyone agreed, though, and one comment says, “I love virtual school it's the best thing to ever happen to me. I'm so sorry.” But no matter what the opinions were, it is clear that TikTok is a place where teenagers are talking about virtual school and sharing their true feelings about it.

Although most of the 25 videos were made by students, there were videos made by teachers, who are as important to virtual school as students are. One of these, posted in August 2020, with 2.2 million views and 291k likes, features a teacher filming various clips of herself while teaching first-grade students over Zoom (Britt 2020). Some of the clips were of her greeting the students and teaching them how to mute/unmute themselves. The comments under this video were very supportive towards her and the difficult work she does, such as one that says, “She seems like an awesome teacher. God bless the teachers, police, and all essential workers.” Videos like this one can reach a large number of people and show them what it is like for teachers to teach virtual school.

Some of the other unique TikTok videos included a woman giving tips for students in online school (Jozadak 2021) and a mom making lunch for her kids doing virtual school (Woo 2020). No matter what the specific content of the video was, all 25 of these videos gave a unique and important insight into virtual school. These 25 TikTok videos about virtual school reveal a lot about how Generation Z, as well as a few teachers and parents, experienced virtual school and their feelings surrounding it. Members of Generation Z made “day in the life of virtual school” TikTok videos to share what their lives looked like during the time of virtual school. Many TikTok videos brought comedy to the virtual school experiences. Some of the videos, though, were more serious and featured students sharing their true emotions and negative feelings about virtual school. There were also a few videos made by teachers giving an insight into what it is like to teach virtual school. All of these videos show that people shared and discussed their virtual school experiences on TikTok, which is why TikTok represents pandemic life so well. People feel comfortable filming their days, creating humorous content about relatable situations, and sharing their true emotions on TikTok, and we see that through these 25 videos about virtual school.

“Pandemic Teens” TikTok Videos

This section of the data collection is an analysis of the top 25 TikTok videos under the search “Pandemic Teens”. Once again, these 25 videos are not necessarily the most viewed or liked videos; they are just the first ones that show up under that search. These videos were generally less viral than in the previous two categories, but the number of likes on the videos still ranged from 81 to 988.5k. Also, these 25 videos were posted between May 26, 2020, and June 28, 2022. The purpose of looking at these videos was to learn more about how the pandemic specifically impacted the lives of teenagers and how people communicated this on TikTok. Although many of the videos were made by members of Generation Z, there were several videos made by adults (more so than in the other two categories).

Compared to adults, teenagers have been living through COVID-19 for a larger proportion of their lives. For members of Generation Z, COVID-19 has been around for the very significant and formative years of middle school, high school, and college. Many of the TikTok videos were made by teenagers acknowledging how much time has passed since the start of the pandemic and how much they’ve grown up since then. For example, one video features a teenage girl with text that says, “I was 15 when COVID started…” and then “...soon I’ll be 18 years old” with the song “7 Years” by Lukas Graham in the background (Em 2021). One of the comments under this video says, “My teen years spent in a pandemic so fun.” This sort of sarcastic humor around COVID-19 impacting teenagers’ lives in negative ways is a common sentiment in this category of videos. This video was posted in December 2021, and though it only received 2,029 likes, the general idea of this video is very common throughout the 25 videos.

There were other similar videos talking about how experiencing a pandemic during the teenage years is a very unique experience. One video posted in January 2021 features a young woman with text that says, “Name something important that happens in your teen years” and then says, “Global pandemic” (Heather 2021). This text appears over a humorous sound bite from Family Feud that says, “Name something a burglar wouldn’t want to see” and then the contestant says, “Naked grandmother.” So, despite this video having humor in it, it is still seriously acknowledging how rare it is to experience a global pandemic in your teenage years. The comments under this video reflect a similar sentiment, such as a comment that says, “PLEASE I'VE BEEN IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC BUT NOT ON A DATE” and one that says, “I’m so tired of not having my first kiss and yet I’m going through all these historical events.” As you can see, these are humorous comments that also have a deeper truth behind them. Experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic at such a young age before other normal teenage experiences is certainly a unique experience, and it was recognized in these TikTok videos.

Similar to the comments previously shown, one TikTok video used the same Family Feud sound bite with text that says, “Name something that occurred before your first kiss:” and then “Global pandemic” (Zavier 2021). The caption of this video says, “Teens in 1920 and 2020 can relate am I right?” This caption really sums up the fact that experiencing a global pandemic before something like a first kiss is extremely rare. So, even though it is a humorous video, it is pointing out the uniqueness of the COVID-19 pandemic experience.

Some of the videos were not so humorous and lighthearted, though. One video showed text that says, “Us teens trying to enjoy life:” and then over a clip of Shrek following behind a group of people, “A global pandemic” (Mia 2021). This video is implying that the pandemic stopped teenagers from enjoying their lives, which has been true in many ways. One comment under this video says, “And I’m turning 18 next year my teenage years were ruined.” As you can see, this video and the comments under it portrayed a very negative perspective on the difficulties of the pandemic and how it negatively impacted teenagers’ lives. This video shows that although TikTok is full of humorous videos, there are still very serious videos where teenagers share their honest feelings and life experiences.

Most of the videos discussed so far were made by Generation Z, but as previously stated, many of the videos under “Pandemic Teens” were not made by teenagers. For example, one video, posted in August 2021 with 679.2k likes, features an adult man giving advice to teenagers (Dr. RJ 2021). In the video, the text on the screen says, “Teen: ‘this pandemic has made me so lazy and introverted. I need help setting goals and being confident again.’” Then, the creator of the video barged into the room, showing that he wants to help teenagers with these sorts of problems (Dr. RJ 2021). Another video features an adult woman talking about how parents need to pay close attention to their teenagers during the pandemic because of the many mental challenges it brings (Taylor 2022). The video’s caption says, “Support teens and their mental health!” Just from the comments under this video, it is clear that teenagers are connecting with what she is saying about the pandemic being difficult on teenagers and their mental health. One comment says, “I just came from your video thanking someone and I just want to thank YOU. You described what I as a teen suffering through this pandemic has been.” From just these two videos shown, we see that TikTok is not just a place for teenagers to make funny videos, but it is a place where adults can connect with and help teenagers. This was all especially true during the difficult COVID-19 pandemic.

There were a variety of videos under “Pandemic Teens”, and because of that, there are a variety of things we can learn about Generation Z’s experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we saw teenagers expressing how many years have passed since the start of COVID-19 and how significant adolescent years were spent in the pandemic. There were also saw some more humorous videos with a similar theme, like teenagers saying how they experienced a global pandemic before their first kiss. Humor on TikTok has been a theme throughout this paper, so it is not surprising that we see that in this group of videos. But, even in the humorous videos, it is clear that living through the COVID-19 pandemic as a teenager is a very unique experience. We also saw some more serious videos of people expressing their negative feelings about COVID-19 “ruining” their teenage years in many ways, which just goes to show how comfortable teenagers feel sharing their honest feelings on TikTok. Most of the TikTok videos throughout these three data analysis categories were made by members of Generation Z, but there were several videos made by adults in this category. Through the TikTok videos made by adults, we saw how TikTok is a place where adults can help teenagers with the difficulties of the pandemic, and this is an important aspect of TikTok. All in all, the videos under “Pandemic Teens” reveal more about how the pandemic impacted teenagers and how people of all ages use TikTok to communicate about this.

CONCLUSION

There are many reasons why TikTok has represented COVID-19 pandemic life for Generation Z. First, TikTok grew in popularity during the pandemic, especially among young people. TikTok also has a very unique algorithm that creates personalized content for each user. Because it is common for regular teenagers to go viral on TikTok, the content is very relatable. Overall, TikTok has the power to connect teenagers and we saw this through the literature review and TikTok videos analyzed in this paper. We saw that teenagers talked about COVID-19 on TikTok in relatable, humorous, and vulnerable ways. Because of that, TikTok shows us a simplified and often lighthearted version of what the COVID-19 pandemic was like for Generation Z. We also saw that during the pandemic, TikTok was a place for Generation Z to find entertainment and see how other people their age were dealing with aspects of the pandemic like virtual school and isolation.

Despite all of these things we saw, my research still has shortcomings. Although I believe that the 75 videos I analyzed represented videos I’ve seen as a teenager on TikTok very well, there are thousands more videos that may contradict the conclusions I came to. I chose the categories “Quarantine 2020,” “Virtual School,” and “Pandemic Teens” because I felt they were great representations of COVID-19-related content on TikTok. Still, there are many different types of COVID-19 content on TikTok that could present a completely different conclusion than the content I looked at. In addition to that, a majority of the videos I watched were made by people in the United States and all of the videos were in English. Because of that, this research paper mostly represents ways in which pandemic life was represented on TikTok for Generation Z in the United States. Not all members of Generation Z are using TikTok, so this data is not representative of all young people. The COVID-19 pandemic was experienced by Generation Z in a multitude of complex and unique ways, and many of these deeper emotions and experiences don’t always fit into a short, humorous TikTok video. Because of that, TikTok videos specifically show us simplified, humorous, and entertaining versions of the complex emotions and experiences of Generation Z.

Despite possible shortcomings, there is a lot to be learned from my research. I hope to show through this paper that during the difficult COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok played a role in connecting Generation Z. TikTok was a place where young people could find entertainment in humorous and relatable content about pandemic life. Because of that, TikTok provides us with simplified and accessible representations of how Generation Z experienced the pandemic. If we want to truly understand how young people experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to look at TikTok.

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