Platformed risk culture: Youth equestrians’ framings of falling off the horse on TikTok

Abstract

Equestrian sport is inherently high-risk, and falling off the horse constitutes the most common mechanism of injury and long-term impairment. While previous research has examined the physical causes and consequences of falls, less is known about how young equestrians make sense of risk and attribute meaning to falling. This study therefore explores how equestrians construct, negotiate, and normalise risk in contemporary digital environments. Using online ethnography, 61 posts and 6723 comments associated with the hashtag #ridingfails on TikTok were analysed. Field notes were thematically synthesised into composite narratives and interpreted drawing on Goffman's frame analysis in conjunction with concepts of social media logic. The findings indicate that falling off is framed as an expected and routine aspect of equestrian practice, shaped by cultural ideals of resilience and toughness. At the same time, these experiences are keyed as ‘failures’ through #ridingfails, while more serious injuries are largely absent. Rather than being solely negative, falls are also framed as markers of progression and are frequently accompanied by comics. Moreover, through processes of fabrication, falls are sometimes transformed into entertainment, illustrating how visibility, popularity, and connectivity shape platformed risk cultures and equestrians’ understandings of failure and inherent risk. These keyings are, however, contested by ‘TikTok trainers’, who offer unsolicited advice on riders’ performance, technique, and competence, and in some cases raise concerns regarding horse welfare. Overall, the study demonstrates that risk in contemporary equestrianism is shaped through deeply mediatized framings in which platform logics intersect with cultural ideals. These findings highlight the importance of developing safety interventions that resonate with young riders’ lived and digitally embedded risk cultures.

Introduction

Equestrian sports are inherently risky and are strongly associated with elevated injury rates (Brooks and Bixby-Hammett, 1988; Sorli, 2000) for both riders (Sanchez, 2017) and horses (Thompson et al., 2015). Previous injury research has primarily focused on identifying risk factors and epidemiological injury patterns. Extensive studies show that women constitute most participants in equestrian sport injury research (Hoffmann et al., 2023), and that youth riders (Neville et al., 2024) as well as novice riders (Mayberry et al., 2007) are at increased risk for injury. Globally, falling from a horse is the most common injury mechanism in equestrian sports (Young et al., 2015), with prevalence estimates ranging between 42.7% and 83% among youth and adult equestrians (Boije Af Gennäs and Jungmalm, 2025; Havlik, 2010; Hawson et al., 2010; McCrory and Turner, 2005; Meredith et al., 2019; Neville et al., 2024). Such falls frequently result in contusions, head injuries, and fractures. This injury mechanism can be complex and is often associated with increased severity and even life-threatening outcomes (Neville et al., 2024). The immediate physical cause when falling is commonly attributed to the horse rearing or bucking (Meredith and Stigson, 2020), often because the horse is spooked or green, that is, inexperienced and new to being ridden (Hawson et al., 2010; Lawrence, 1984). Although efforts by various actors to improve safety through regulations, protective equipment, and educational initiatives do exist. Still, falling off horses, sustaining severe injuries (Neville et al., 2024) and accepting risk (Sanchez, 2017) remain common in equestrian culture. Drawing on Goffman (1974), this article employs the concept of ‘frame’ to analyse socially constructed risks and the most common injury mechanism (i.e., falling off the horse). The analysis focuses on the social media platform TikTok and examines how these presentations can be interpreted considering social media logics. This is motivated by the fact that social media has become an integral element of contemporary culture, especially among young people. More specifically, we aim to address the following two questions: (1) How do young equestrians frame fall-related incidents on TikTok? and (2) Which dynamic framing processes (keying, fabrication, disputing frame, breaking frame) are central to the normalisation of risk?

Sociocultural risk in equestrian culture (online)

Building on multidisciplinary sports injury research (Burwitz et al., 1994; Hausken-Sutter et al., 2021), this article regards risk and injury in equestrian sport as a culturally embedded phenomenon shaped by the intersection of historical traditions, cultural norms, and contemporary digital media. In previous efforts to develop injury-mitigating strategies in equestrian sport, Thompson et al. (2015) identified four dimensions of horse-related risks: the risk itself, the horse, the rider, and the culture in which equestrian activities take place. This informs potential mitigation strategies directed at improving the predictability of horses (to and by humans), improving riders’ competence in the physical skills to make them more resilient to injury and falls, and finally, behaviour change for safer equestrian cultures. Promoting behavioural change within equine cultures, particularly when exploring why individuals engage in activities they know may be considered risky (Nixon, 1993), requires a cultural rather than an individualistic perspective (Boije Af Gennäs and Jungmalm, 2022). A cultural perspective facilitates an understanding of both culturally specific norms and practices, as well as broader patterns within equestrian sport.

In contemporary equestrian cultures, risk and injury are widely normalised, yet the meanings attached to them are continually reworked in gendered ways. A competent equestrian is expected to be strong, resilient, and willing to take risks (Hedenborg, 2007a, 2008; Sanchez, 2017; Thorell et al., 2016). For instance, learning to ride is often understood to entail falling off; sometimes repeatedly as an almost necessary rite of passage (Hedenborg, 2008). These understandings are historically rooted in both equestrianism's military past, where toughness, endurance, and risk-taking were central, masculine-coded values, but also in rural contexts in which working with horses required physical strength, skill, and resilience from both men and women (Dashper, 2016; Hedenborg, 2007b). Within agrarian settings, women were often active, capable, and accustomed to physically demanding tasks, contributing to a broader cultural ideal of the strong and enduring equestrian (Dashper, 2016). Although the sport has undergone significant transformations, not least through its feminization as girls and women have come to dominate participation, its core elements of this cultural heritage persist (Sanchez, 2025; Thorell et al., 2016). Thus, both militarised and rural traditions continue to inform contemporary expectations of what it means to be a ‘real’ rider.

Other research also points to the complexity of equestrian risk culture, where risk awareness coexists with limited uptake of protective measures such as helmet use, highlighting how cultural attitudes, social influences, and perceptions of control contribute to sustaining risk-taking practices (Haigh and Thompson, 2015). Lay understandings of risk should not be dismissed because they diverge from expert perspectives; rather, their contextual and cultural embeddedness must be recognised to develop effective mitigation strategies. Overall, these cultural frameworks not only shape interpretations of danger but also sustain a collective orientation grounded in shared expectations, mutual obligations, and embodied practices.

To address these cultural conditions under which risk-taking is valued or expected, we focus on the cultural context online, more specifically on TikTok, in which equestrian activities are embedded (Snell et al., 2024; Thompson et al., 2015). TikTok is a social media app for creating, sharing, and discovering short videos, especially focused on music, trends, creativity, and viral content (Kaye et al., 2021). Its algorithm curates highly personalized content feeds, making it a popular space for trends, entertainment, and social interaction (Abidin, 2020). In general, social media has become a fundamental part of everyday social interaction, reflecting the deep entanglement between online and offline everyday life (Berg, 2015; Nissenbaum, 2011). Its reach and usage, particularly among young people, have grown significantly, making it an integral element of contemporary Western society. Building on Andreas Hepp's concept of deep mediatization, which describes a historical condition in which digital media infrastructures become constitutive of social life (Hepp, 2020), this paper understands social media logics, such as connectivity and popularity, as platform-specific organising principles that structure social practices (van Dijck and Poell, 2013).

In equestrian communities online, recent findings show that young Swedish and Norwegian equestrians primarily consume and create horse- and riding-related content on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok (Broms, Boije Af Gennäs et al., 2022). Seen on Instagram are carefully curated images and videos that highlight moments of success, aesthetic beauty, and the seemingly effortless connection between rider and horse (Broms, Hedenborg et al., 2022; Radmann et al., 2021; Snell et al., 2024). These idealized representations correspond to a central dimension of social media logic (van Dijck and Poell, 2013), in which popularity is fuelled by visually appealing and carefully curated performances that generate engagement and perpetuate narratives of glamour and success. Yet, young equestrians increasingly contest this idealised portrayal of equestrianism (Broms, Hedenborg et al., 2022). One way to engage in debates is through hashtags (i.e., #), which function as organizational tools to structure public debates and support agenda building (Enli and Simonsen, 2018). Hashtags are shaped by factors specific to platforms, events, and society (Gustafsson and Larsson, 2025), which enable both old and new users to participate in ongoing conversations and initiate new ones (Rambukkana, 2015).

Theoretical framework

To analyse how risk is constructed and negotiated in digital equestrian interactions, this study draws primarily on Goffman's (1974) frame analysis. This framework is complemented by perspectives on social media logic (van Dijck, 2013; van Dijck and Poell, 2013) and the understanding of risk as socially constructed (Douglas and Douglas, 1992; Lupton, 2023).

Goffman (1974) defines a frame as the ‘…principles of organisation which govern events––at least social ones––and our subjective involvement in them…’ (Goffman 1994: 10–11). Organising experience is essential for understanding what is happening in social interaction and how situations can shift into something else and then change again. These shifts of reality illustrate the inherent vulnerability of social interaction. Frames thus help answer the question of ‘what is going on here’ and under what conditions this situation is understood as real (James, 1950 [1890]; Persson, 2019). While frame analysis encompasses a wide range of concepts, this study focuses specifically on primary frameworks and four forms of laminations relevant to digital interactions and risk.

The fundamental frame is referred to as the primary framework and is commonly divided into a natural framework and a social framework. The natural framework identifies situations in the natural world, whereas the social framework helps us interpret situations in relation to social norms, intentions and cultural beliefs (Goffman, 1974). The primary frameworks are stable, deeply embedded, and provide the initial meaning structure. Then, the primary framework is reorganised and reinterpreted through various layered laminations. For this article, the analysis is informed by four of Goffman’s (1974) conceptualised laminations: ‘keying’, ‘fabrication’, ‘disputing frames’, and ‘breaking frame’. Keying is a process in which an activity is reinterpreted by shifting it into a different register or mode. Fabrication occurs when individuals intentionally manipulate or stage aspects of a situation to influence how others interpret it. Disputing frames emerge when different participants apply competing frames to the same situation, leading to disagreement about what is happening or how it should be understood. Breaking frames occur when the existing frame collapses because something unexpected disrupts the shared understanding of the situation.

According to Goffman (1974), conceptual frames and laminations organise experience by structuring how individuals perceive and interpret social interaction. Frames are grounded in culturally shared ‘schemata of interpretation’, through which social phenomena acquire meaning. From this perspective, risk can be understood as ‘a socially constructed interpretation and response to a “real” danger that objectively exists, even if knowledge about it can only ever be mediated through sociocultural processes’ (Douglas and Douglas, 1992: 103; Lupton, 2023: 52). Risk is therefore not merely an individual cognitive assessment but a culturally embedded way of interpreting and responding to genuine threats, such as injury. These shared mental models fulfil important social functions and shape how individuals evaluate and manage risk (Douglas and Douglas, 1992). Following this logic, the choices equestrians make online can be understood as consequences of culturally shared framings of risk within digital equestrian communities.

To interpret contemporary youth equestrians’ digital practices, frame analysis is also complemented by the concept of social media logic (van Dijck, 2013; van Dijck and Poell, 2013). This integration is necessary as meaning-making on platforms such as TikTok is shaped not only by social interaction, but also by platform-specific affordances and algorithmic processes (Gillespie, 2014). Social media logic refers to the technological, economic, and cultural principles that structure participation in digital environments. In this study, particular attention is given to the dimensions of popularity and connectivity. Connectivity describes the algorithmically driven linking of users to content and to one another (van Dijck and Poell, 2013), here operationalised through the use of hashtags (Enli and Simonsen, 2018). Social interaction becomes continuously tracked, monetised, and governed through algorithmic processes, determining what becomes visible or valued (Couldry and Hepp, 2017; van Dijck, 2013). Popularity refers to the platform-mediated valuation of content through metrics such as likes, shares, and views, whereby visibility is actively shaped by algorithmic processes rather than solely by user preference (Gillespie, 2014). These processes constrain autonomy and reshape identity formation, as individuals curate themselves to achieve algorithmic recognition (Abidin, 2020). Consequently, shares, likes and comments become a source for social value (Couldry and Hepp, 2017; Hepp, 2020).

Taken together, these dimensions highlight how equestrian content is not only produced and shared by users but also structured and amplified by platform logics. This allows for an analysis of how representations of falling off the horse are collectively constructed, negotiated, and normalised within digitally mediated equestrian communities.

Method

In this study, we focus on how risk and the most common injury mechanism (i.e., falling off the horse) are framed on the social media platform TikTok using online ethnography (Berg, 2015) in an emergent design (Creswell and Creswell, 2023).

Procedure

The study began with an exploratory phase in October 2023, which sensitised the researcher to relevant platforms and visual tropes and informed the selection of an analytically and empirically relevant hashtag for the ensuing digital fieldwork in November 2023 (Zaidi, 2022). To this end, an exploratory mapping of horse-related injury content was carried out on TikTok and Instagram. Firstly, the TikTok hashtag #ridingfails had generated approximately 4.3 million views, indicating a substantially higher level of activity and visibility than comparable hashtags such as #stablefails, which comprised only three posts at the time of observation. Its content was predominantly concerned, either explicitly or implicitly, with falls from the horse.

The exploratory phase also identified an Instagram account titled ridingfails, which functioned primarily as an aggregator of user-generated content. With 4986 posts, 88,300 followers, and minimal reciprocal following, the account appeared oriented towards content dissemination rather than interactive social networking. According to the account biography, the account was anonymously initiated by two Swedish equestrians with the stated aim of normalising failure as an inherent component of equestrian sport. Followers were invited to submit videos depicting their own riding failures, thereby contributing to a collective visual archive of mishaps and falls.

While #ridingfails was actively utilised across both platforms, the empirical material analysed in the present study was confined to TikTok. This decision was made to avoid mediation by content curators and to ensure access to a broad corpus of unfiltered user-generated material. Furthermore, the hashtag was well established on TikTok, with a high volume of posts, and, in comparison to the Instagram account, provided extensive user interaction.

The first author reviewed posts associated with the hashtag #ridingfails on TikTok using a smartphone. To reduce the influence of algorithmic personalisation, a newly created user profile was employed; however, it is acknowledged that complete elimination of personalisation on the platform is not possible. The posts were selected according to the platform's default ranking and documented through field notes. The field notes focused on: caption description, video content; descriptive summaries of associated comments; and number of likes, shares and saves. Several posts had extensive comment threads, requiring prolonged periods of observation, sometimes exceeding one hour per post. The observations continued until analytical saturation was reached, defined as the point at which no new analytically relevant patterns were identified (Braun and Clarke, 2021; Kozinets, 2015).

Material

The field notes comprised 61 posts and 6723 comments, which at the time of observation had received a total of 719,850 likes, 5785 shares, and 53,431 saves. Sex was categorised based on the researchers’ interpretation of visible physical characteristics. We recognise that such classifications are inherently uncertain and rely on visual cues that may not accurately reflect individuals’ sex or gender identities. Nevertheless, this interpretive approach was used for analytical purposes. It should also be noted that equestrian sport is numerically dominated by girls and women, which provides a contextual frame for these interpretations. Most posts were thus interpreted as featuring female equestrians (n = 59), with male equestrians appearing in two posts. A similar approach was taken regarding age, which was likewise estimated based on visual cues. Activities primarily included: showjumping indoors and outdoors (26 posts); riding or lunging outdoors (25 posts); track-and-field-style exercises outdoors (six posts); and instructive without riding (four posts). The videos are often captured by someone recording the horse and its rider without obvious editing; however, some videos are compilations of different failures at different events or by different riders and sometimes edited to show the horse and the riders’ technical progression. An example of an instructive video shows an equestrian facing the camera and speaking directly to the viewer.

Analysis

The initial analysis was conducted by the first author using NVivo 15 and guided by Emerson et al.'s (2011) ethnographic analytic approach. The field notes were read repeatedly, coded inductively, and organised into themes through an iterative process supported by analytic memos. All authors jointly reviewed and discussed themes and memos to deepen the shared interpretation of the core phenomena, which were subsequently analysed through Frame Analysis and Social Media Logic.

To present the themes, a storytelling approach was employed through the use of third-person composite narratives (Piper and Sikes, 2010). These narratives were developed based on the identified themes and the subsequent analysis and were refined through peer debriefing to ensure accurate and credible representation of each theme. This approach enabled an appropriate presentation of material that is inherently audiovisual and temporally structured.

In contrast to conventional thematic analysis, in which meaning is often illustrated through isolated excerpts, composite narratives capture how events unfold over time and how meaning is produced through visual sequencing, embodied action, and situational context (McElhinney and Kennedy, 2022). As such, the use of composite narratives enhanced the transferability of the analysis by providing thick description and rich contextual detail (Alleyne, 2015).

Results and discussion

In the following section, we begin by describing the primary framework of the most common injury mechanism (i.e., falling off a horse) and risk-taking represented among equestrians’ posts on TikTok. We then proceed with an analysis of these phenomena through the lens of the dynamic framing processes supported by an understanding of socially constructed risk and social media logic to deepen the analytical perspective.

Primary framework: Falling off a horse is normal(ised)

As outlined by Goffman (1974), primary frameworks are broadly divided into natural and social frameworks. Within a natural primary framework, falling off a horse may be understood as a physical, undirected event; neither intentional nor moral, but simply a consequence of interacting with a large animal. Horses are flight- and herd animals that respond instinctively to perceived threats (Havlik, 2010), meaning that the risk of falling cannot be fully controlled by the equestrian. From this perspective, falling off is commonly understood by equestrians as an inherent and expected part of riding, rather than as an indication of failure or success (Lupton, 2023).

However, the framing of falling off the horse appears to shift from a predominantly natural framework to a social one through its mediation on TikTok, particularly via the hashtag #ridingfails. Events that were previously interpreted as unavoidable aspects of human-horse interaction are re-presented as shareable moments of ‘failure’, embedded within the logics of social media (cf. van Dijck and Poell, 2013). The most common injury mechanism in equestrian sport, that is, falling off the horse, as outlined in the introduction, is thus rendered visible, repeated, and normalised through connectivity and popularity, through practises such as recording, sharing, and tagging. In this sense, #ridingfails contributes not to the creation of risk, but to its social re-framing and circulation within equestrian culture. The following composite narrative illustrates a scenario frequently observed across #ridingfails on TikTok:

Karen is riding her horse on an empty gravel road. The grass track beside them stretches out like a runway, and her horse, Pio, is full of energy. Nothing seems to hold them back as Karen lets Pio move into a gallop, and together they fly down the track. Pio's stride is smooth, and for a moment Karen feels pure freedom. Then, without warning, Pio shies to the side. Karen feels herself sliding to the right; her usually solid balance disappears in an instant, and she falls.

When startled, horses may react instinctively by shying, bucking, or abruptly changing speed or direction (Hawson et al. 2010; Lawrence, 1984). Across the material posted under #ridingfails, similar sequences recur where horses rear, buck, accelerate, stop abruptly at fences, or evade (perceived) threats, often resulting in the rider losing control and falling. These repeated scenarios foreground falling off the horse as a central incident around which the content is organised. Viewed through van Dijck and Poell's (2013) social media logic, #ridingfails can be understood as operating through the logics of connectivity and popularity (cf. van Dijck and Poell, 2013). Falls function as highly connective moments that invite recognition, commentary, and sharing, linking individual riders into a broader networked experience. Their popularity is not incidental but structurally produced, as algorithmic systems privilege affective, recognisable, and engaging content that can circulate on platforms such as TikTok.

To fully understand why such incidents are shared online, however, falling must also be examined within a social framework. Although falling off is widely recognised among equestrians as an expected experience, its public presentation as ‘failure’ raises questions about meaning-making within contemporary equestrian culture. The following composite narrative further illustrates how this social framing is produced and negotiated on TikTok.

Ida is the only one of the sisters who has TikTok, since Julia is too young to have her own account. Still, they watch the videos together. Ida never posts anything herself but enjoys watching other people's clips. Under the hashtag #ridingfails, there are many girls falling off their horses. The clips often feature upbeat or humorous music, and none of them show whether the girls are seriously injured. Julia thought falling off would hurt more after seeing all the clips on TikTok and both Julia and Ida know that falling can result in a broken bone or a serious hit to the head and that such injuries can even have long-term consequences. Occasionally, they see commenters who claim to know that the rider broke something, and often the rider confirms it. Other users comment by sharing their own experiences: several users mention breaking an arm or ribs after a fall. One user describes falling so badly that everyone around her panicked and expected the worst, yet she got up and jumped the next class with a broken arm. Julia knows that most riders probably need to fall off their horse at some point, but watching these clips takes the edge off. She doesn’t feel as scared anymore.

This narrative demonstrates how TikTok can normalise falling off by framing it as a routine, even manageable, aspect of equestrian life. Through repetition, falling becomes less frightening and more expected, shaping how young riders understand risk and their own experiences, while the platform's logics of connectivity and popularity amplify these moments through circulation, recognition, and algorithmic visibility (Gillespie, 2014; van Dijck and Poell, 2013).

Furthermore, in the videos, the riders fall, and it likely hurts, except this is never shown and seldom confirmed. Instead, the caption typically reassures viewers that both the horse and the rider are ‘100% OK’, which can be interpreted as a confirmation that they are uninjured or at least unharmed. Another important aspect of the social framework is that the fall is never framed as the horse's fault. While horses can be unpredictable (i.e., natural framework), they are frequently portrayed as innocent companions with no intention of causing harm (i.e., social framework). This framing reinforces the idea that the bond between horse and rider remains intact and that the horse should not be blamed for the fall. Within this cultural context, attributing blame to the horse would likely be seen as inappropriate and may invite criticism.

Keying's: Failure, Comics and Progress

In this section, we present how the social primary framework of falling off a horse is reinterpreted and keyed as Failure, Comics and Progress. That when the observed behaviour remains the same, but its meaning is metamorphosed. In Goffman's (1974) terminology, the behaviour is placed through layers of keying's and the participants’ understanding of what is happening shifts. Keying's, therefore, alter how an event is perceived and ultimately the way an action is framed. In other words, keying's transform the meaning of an activity by placing it into a different interpretive frame (Goffman, 1974).

Failure, as the first instance of a keying, lies in the very hashtag used, namely #ridingfails. The use of the word ‘fail’ originates from the term failure, which according to the Oxford English Dictionary, denotes ‘the lack of success’, ‘the neglect or omission of an expected or required action’, or ‘the action or state of not functioning’. Hence, by using this label, equestrians themselves categorise and organise some of the most medically undesirable and risky moments in equestrianism as failure. At first glance, a riding fail appears to depict a moment when something does not go as planned, such as an accident or an incident. An accident is unexpected and results in injury or harm, whereas an incident is an unexpected near miss that could have resulted in harm but did not. However, beneath this idealised framing lies a contradictory reality, that is, the events depicted under #ridingfails are neither unexpected nor exceptional. Instead, the content depicts the most common injury mechanism in equestrian sport, which is falling off your horse and as an event that equestrians anticipate as part of their sporting trajectory. In the TikTok context, the term ‘fail’ does not function as an evaluation of incompetence, but rather as a first keying device that shifts the meaning of the fall away from danger and bodily vulnerability toward something lighter, more manageable, and socially acceptable.

Comics represent a central form of keying across both videos and captions, through which potentially painful events are reframed as socially acceptable and shareable content. Within TikTok's #ridingfails, multimodal elements, such as laughing emojis, captions (e.g., ‘LOL’ or ‘I promise I’m ok’), and light-hearted music signal that the fall should be interpreted as harmless. These cues guide interpretation and position the event as collectively consumable rather than individually problematic. Importantly, the comics rarely functions as ridicule. Instead, it operates as a communal framing device, through which riders present themselves as participating in a shared understanding of equestrian practices. In this sense, comics enable riders to align themselves with cultural norms in which falling is expected, while simultaneously maintaining social legitimacy. Comics also serves a platform-specific function, since content framed as entertaining is more likely to be circulated, recommended, and engaged with. Thus, aligning with the logics of visibility and popularity on TikTok. Falls, characterised by suddenness and unpredictability, lend themselves particularly well to such framing. While labelled as ‘fails’, these moments often function simultaneously as markers of visibility and engagement, generating views, likes, and shares. In this sense, falling-off videos may be understood as instances of what could be termed #ridingfailsuccess, where experiences of risk and failure are reconfigured into socially and algorithmically rewarded forms of participation (Kaye et al., 2021).

Another type of keying is Progress, where posts are created by equestrians who compile multiple clips and edit them into a progression narrative. Typically, they show the rider beginning as a novice and gradually advancing to competing and jumping challenging obstacle courses. At times, the focus shifts from the rider to the horse, highlighting the animal's development; from being perceived as ‘unruly’ to becoming ‘well-trained’. These videos frequently include falls, and sometimes the riders acknowledge that a particular fall was serious. Even when injuries occur, or the rider is visibly in pain, the overarching conclusion is invariably that the experience has made them better and stronger. That they have learned something valuable and will ultimately overcome the setback. One rider, for instance, describes in the caption how she has faced hardship and failure in the form of falls and broken bones, yet frames these experiences as catalysts for improvement. The fall becomes positioned as the origin of numerous personal and equestrian advancements.

Fabrication: Entertainment

According to Goffman (1974), Fabrication refers to situations in which individuals intentionally manipulate or stage aspects of an event to shape how others interpret it. On TikTok, such fabrication is evident in how riding content is staged, cut, and edited to appear exciting, aesthetically compelling, or ‘cool’, thereby enhancing popularity through engagement and strengthening connectivity between users (Abidin, 2021; Kaye et al., 2021). Within this frame, falling is no longer treated as an accidental or purely routine occurrence; instead, it is deliberately transformed into entertainment, reorganised to fit platform logics that reward visibility, circulation, and affective response (Gillespie, 2014; van Dijck and Poell, 2013). This dynamic is illustrated in the following composite narrative:

Malin's friend Lisa had brought her car so they could film an epic TikTok. Malin wanted to record a wild bareback gallop along the cornfield by Andersson's farm. She had hardly noticed the spot before, but suddenly it felt perfect. The road was empty, the grass track stretched out like a runway, and her horse Bruno was full of energy. With no competitions coming up, nothing was holding them back. Lisa filmed from the car as Bruno and Malin flew down the track. Then, without warning, Bruno shied to the side. Malin felt herself sliding to the right, away from the car. Her balance vanished instantly. Perhaps they had used too much grooming polish on his back. But Bruno saved her; he stopped the second he felt her going. Malin landed softly and could laugh it off, while Lisa kept filming, completely shocked. The fall turned out to be perfect content for a ridingfail-video. Although Malin and Lisa cut out the moment she hit the ground in the final clip, they wrote in the caption: ‘Bruno and I are 100% okay.’ With added music, the clip gained that electric, wild energy. Lisa insisted it would get more likes than any of their progress videos, and Malin suspected she was right. In the end, Malin realised it was a good thing Lisa hadn’t stopped recording.

This composite narrative exemplifies how riders deliberately shape their content to maximise connectivity and popularity. The fall is not merely documented; instead, it is produced, curated, and edited to fit platform expectations, aesthetic norms, and popularity logics. In doing so, the meaning of the event is transformed, aligning it with the entertainment-driven and algorithmically mediated culture of TikTok (Abidin, 2020; Kaye et al., 2021).

The essence of this framing lies in how the clip is crafted to appear as though the rider fails by falling off, even though the clip was staged and the creators anticipated that a fall might occur. In this way, the clip is fabricated to a situation intentionally shaped to influence how viewers interpret the event, according to the logics of social media (cf. Van Dick and Poell, 2023). The participants are misled in a playful or practical manner, not in an exploitative one. This particularly aligns with Goffman's (1974) notion of benign fabrication, comparable to a surprise party rather than to economic fraud.

Disputing frame: TikTok-trainers

Disputing frames as a concept characterise situations in which different participants apply competing interpretive frames to the same event, resulting in disagreement over what is happening or how it should be understood. This highlights that online content cannot be understood solely as technologically shaped; human interpretation and interaction are equally central. In our material, disputing frames emerge when self-proclaimed experts challenge the established framing of a clip by questioning or criticising it. Commentators express strong opinions about the rider's technique or competence, frequently offering unsolicited advice on how performance could be improved, as illustrated in the composite narrative below. These interventions also extend to concerns about the horse's welfare, further complicating the meaning of the original content by introducing alternative moral and professional evaluations.

Julia and her friends were sitting in the stable's clubroom, where the air was warm and still. The evening chores were finished, the horses rested peacefully in their stalls, and the girls had sunk into the quiet glow of their phones, absorbed in TikTok's endless stream of trending clips.

Hoping to find more riding videos, Julia tapped the search field and typed riding. She curiously selected a hashtag she recognised from Instagram: #ridingfails. The first video that appeared showed a girl in gallop, wobbling slightly, with a caption boldly declaring: ‘give me hate.’ Beneath it, the newest comment flashed: ‘Your coach shouldn’t have let you gallop yet when you clearly don’t have the balance for it’.

Julia felt her stomach twist and immediately showed the others. The comment section was exploding. More than a hundred strangers were dissecting the girl's riding, her position, her hands, her horse, her coach. Some commenters pretended to be helpful, beginning with: ‘no disrespect, but…’ before launching into long monologues about everything she was doing wrong. Others were more encouraging, replying with hearts, laughing emojis, and supportive cheers. Julia's friends leaned closer, horrified yet fascinated: ‘Ugh… there are always going to be TikTok trainers out there’.

One of them muttered it with the kind of certainty that comes from experience. The girls knew these TikTok-trainers well, people who handed out unsolicited riding advice as if they knew everything and who acted as though they understood the rider, the horse, the situation… all from a six second clip. It felt too real, and painfully unfair. So, in the stillness of the clubroom, as the lights from their parents’ cars appeared on the driveway and the horses settled for the night – the girls felt the weight of it.

The clip that Julia watches resembles many other clips circulating on the platform; however, in this case, comics does not frame the situation. Instead, the comment section is dominated by instructions, corrections, and critiques aimed at teaching the rider what to do. While this may partly be explained by the creator seemingly inviting criticism, a more compelling explanation relates to the phenomenon referred to by TikTok users themselves as TikTok-trainers. These users do not merely dispute the existing frame but actively attempt to replace it with their own authoritative interpretation. Still, even when content is framed critically rather than humorously, it remains shaped by social media logics. Popularity and connectivity on TikTok do not depend on positive framing alone; critical engagement, controversy, and corrective commentary can also generate visibility, interaction, and sustained circulation.

Breaking frame: Too serious to post

Our final framing process, breaking frame, occurs when the existing frame collapses because something unexpected disrupts the shared understanding of the situation (Goffman, 1974). In these videos, this happens when the tone shifts from progress, comical and fabricated entertainment, to seriousness. A typical example is when a user explains that she was seriously injured or is working to regain her confidence after a fall. In one instance, a rider describes how she was permitted by her coach to ride the track again after a competition, even though she had been unable to complete her round. Here, the framing of the fall as a playful or entertaining ‘fail’ is no longer sustainable. Instead, the narrative shifts to vulnerability, injury, and recovery. That is, elements that break the established frame and reveal the underlying risks of equestrian sport, as shown in the composite narrative below:

It had been a month since Sara's last fall, a fall that had badly shaken her confidence. With support from her coach, Hanna, who rode her horse Queenie several times to help them both move beyond the accident. Now, Sara slowly began to trust herself and her horse again. Feeling grateful, she eventually posted a TikTok containing short clips of both her and Hanna riding Queenie, accompanied by the caption: ‘My horse and I have really progressed since the fall, and I’m so grateful to my coach Hanna’.

Since the fall, Sara had not posted on TikTok at all, despite previously uploading content twice a day. Instead, she chose to focus on healing without the added pressure of social media commentary. She needed time and space to rebuild her courage with Hanna's help, without the online expectation of constant progress. Now that she felt like herself again, Sara decided to explain her silence and share her story. She hoped to show others that it is possible to come back after a serious fall and that failure is part of the equestrian journey. Even during her break from posting, she continued to record small moments, knowing she would eventually feel strong enough to return to social media.

There are some posts that are too serious to post. Minor mishaps are visible under #ridingfails; however, posts with ‘real’ or clearly serious injuries and situations do not appear. These are posts where one can immediately see, even in a short clip, that the rider or horse is in significant pain or has sustained an obvious injury. Examples such as visible bleeding, broken bones, or a rider who cannot get up after a fall are absent. Yet, acknowledged in the commentary section and as shown in the composite narrative above, such injuries occur and are expected as a consequence of falling off a horse. At times, TikTok administration inserts a notice or trigger warning to these videos, stating that the actions depicted should not be attempted without supervision. This absence can be interpreted as a form of setting boundaries within the community. While everyday falls can be keyed as comic or entertaining, serious injuries would break the frame (Goffman, 1974), making it difficult to maintain the playful or light-hearted tone expected within this hashtag. In other words, serious injuries disrupt the shared understanding that #ridingfails is a space for mild embarrassment, resilience, and entertainment, not trauma.

From the perspective of social media logic (van Dijck and Poell, 2013), these exclusions can also be understood through the platform's dynamic of popularity. Content that is too graphic or distressing risks being downranked or removed through moderation algorithms. It is also less likely to attract likes, shares, or playful comments, and may even provoke backlash. Users therefore learn what works within the platform's reward structures, shaping what kinds of equestrian risk narratives are circulated. Light falls that can be framed as funny or relatable perform well; severe injuries do not fit the platform's expectation of entertainment value.

Conclusion

This study examined how young equestrians frame risk-taking and falling off the horse within the social media environment of TikTok. Drawing on Goffman's (1974) frame analysis, complemented by social media logic (van Dijck, 2013; van Dijck and Poell, 2013) and cultural theories of risk (Douglas and Douglas, 1992; Lupton, 2023), the findings show that risk in equestrian sport is not merely a physical hazard but a culturally embedded and platform-shaped phenomenon. While previous research has demonstrated the normalisation of risk in equestrian culture (Thompson et al., 2015), this study shows how such normalisation is actively performed, circulated, and reshaped within platform environments structured by connectivity and popularity.

Across the 61 posts and 6723 comments analysed, falling off was consistently framed as both routine and expected. These representations draw on established equestrian norms in which falling is integral to becoming a skilled rider. Through platform logics of connectivity and popularity, TikTok reinforces this understanding by circulating falls as shared and recognisable experiences, rendering them manageable rather than alarming. These framings reflect enduring ideals of toughness, resilience, and acceptable risk within equestrian culture (Dashper, 2016; Hedenborg, 2008; Sanchez, 2025; Thorell et al., 2016).

The analysis further shows how the meaning of falling is transformed through framing processes (Goffman, 1974). Through keying, potentially dangerous events are reframed as humorous and entertaining. Through fabrication, riders curate, or stage falls to meet expectations of visibility and engagement. Disputing frames emerge when self-positioned experts impose alternative interpretations, often concerning rider competence or equine welfare. Moments of breaking frame, such as visible injury or expressions of fear, briefly disrupt these dominant framings and reveal underlying risks.

From the perspective of deep mediatization (Hepp, 2020), TikTok does not simply represent equestrian culture but reshapes how risk is understood and shared. Falling off becomes a mediatized event that is recorded, circulated, and normalised, feeding back into riders’ everyday understandings of risk and competence.

Concluding, these findings highlight TikTok as a central site where equestrian risk is constructed, negotiated, and learned. While this may foster community and reduce fear, it may also obscure the severity of injuries. A key implication is that safety interventions must resonate with young riders’ lived and digitally embedded risk cultures. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the value of integrating frame analysis with social media logic and using composite narratives to capture and visualise digital practices with words.

Limitations

While the focus on a single platform and hashtag necessarily limits the scope of the study, this concentration enabled an in-depth analysis of a coherent assemblage of practices, representations, and interactions surrounding equestrian failure and injury. Although the material may be considered representative of equestrians, the riders featured in the posts constitute a relatively homogeneous group in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity. Moreover, the perspectives of young equestrians are conveyed solely through the author's observations. To capture their experiences and viewpoints further, future research should incorporate interviews to include young equestrians’ voices directly.