TeachTok: teachers of TikTok, micro-celebrification, and fun learning communities

Abstract

This study explores the subculture of teachers and teaching on TikTok, known in the vernacular as ‘TeachTok’, through a daily walkthrough method, a digital ethnography immersion, and an audio-visual content analysis to understand how teachers participate in the micro-celebrification process. By curating a framework that assesses teachers' identities on social media, from May to July 2021 we closely monitored the accounts of 12 teachers alongside the general discourse of teaching on the platform to understand how they discussed their ‘responsibilities’, ‘commitment’, ‘authority’, and ‘recognition’ among their communities. ‘TeachTok’ was observed to adopt micro-celebrification practices through empathetic, resilient and storytelling dynamics.