Abstract
As scholarship on death and dying has demonstrated, the tendency to ritualize experiences with death and grief stems from the need to find ways to express the pain and agony of loss. In recent decades, these expressions have moved from offline spaces to online spaces, marking a new era of digitally mediated mourning. Social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok enable users to connect, interact, and share across geographical boundaries and time constraints. They have also become virtual memorial spaces for users to post videos, photos, and tributes to deceased loved ones. With a rapid rise in popularity and ever-expanding user base, TikTok's blend of entertainment, self-expression, and emotional connection has become a compelling force among social media platforms. While online mourning is an established phenomenon, TikTok's presence in this space is a relatively recent development; users leverage TikTok's affordances to express their grief publicly and to continue connections with deceased loved ones, in the process, creating a digital “safe space” for public displays of grief. Through the analysis of grief narratives on TikTok and comparison to grief practices on other social media platforms, such as blogs and Facebook, a platform widely associated with online mourning, this article introduces a new form of first-person grief narrative and reflects on how social grieving and memorialization practices are evolving in changing social media environments.
Introduction
I’m a grieving mom, I will keep his bedroom like a shrine for as long as I want to … I’m a grieving mom, of course I don’t feel bad that you’re not going to see your child for a whole semester. I’m a grieving mom, I’ll put his picture on anything. I’m a grieving mom, I’ll cry whenever the fuck I want to, okay? … I’m a grieving mom, I have no idea why that reminds me of him so much, but it does … I’m a grieving mom, but I’m still a mom.
TikTok user (posted December 13, 2023)
In his magnum opus, The Hour of Our Death (1981), the French historian Philippe Ariès illustrates how the innate need to express and create rituals of mourning and memoria is driven by the desire to convey the deep pain and sorrow of losing a loved one. The poignant quote that opens this article, shared on TikTok by a grieving mother, is an example of the contemporary manifestation of these types of mourning rituals; it encapsulates many of the complexities of mourning in the digital age, specifically on social media platforms, as people resist the long sequestration of death (Mellor & Shilling, 1993) to perform what Brennan (2022) and others have called “public mediated dying.”
At the time of writing, TikTok is still a relatively new platform and one whose role and impact in creating online grief spaces has received limited attention. In this article, we propose that TikTok represents a new stage in creating and sharing first-person narratives of grief and dying. These types of narratives, which Hawkins (1991) called “pathographies,” have assumed more dynamic and interactive forms as they have moved online and been shared in increasingly public forums. While scholarly studies of various pathographies have demonstrated the benefits these narratives can have in clinical, educational and policy contexts, it is perhaps too early to identify how grief and death content on TikTok adds to these benefits. Instead, the objective of this article is twofold: First, to explore emerging types of grief narratives produced and circulated by TikTok content creators. Secondly, analyzing several narrative examples and comparing them to grief practices on other social media platforms such as Facebook and blogs, the study considers how social grieving and memorialization practices are changing in response to emerging social media environments. As an early exploration into emerging grief narrative conventions on TikTok, this article lays the foundations necessary for subsequent research on the short and long-term therapeutic benefits of using TikTok for content creators and consumers, as well as on the capacity of the platform as a site for health education, the development of grief literacy, and support for end-of-life planning. Additionally, this article suggests a potential avenue for future research that critically examines the sociocultural dynamics that shape identity, selfhood, and lived experience in contemporary expressions of grief on TikTok.
Background
Digital Mourning and Memoria
There is now a long history of scholarship on the multifaceted dimensions—both positive and negative—of navigating death, grief, and memorialization in the digital age. Early studies, such as Sofka's (1997) groundbreaking work on thanatechnologies, explored emerging grief practices in digital graveyards, message boards, blogs, and email listservs (Bassett, 2018; Cann, 2014; Kasket, 2019; Lynn & Rath, 2012; Walter, 2015). Our work focuses on death, grief, and memorialization content on social media platforms. These platforms have been shown to support the grief work of individuals and communities experiencing disenfranchized grief, or death-related losses that may be societally stigmatized, devalued, or misunderstood through suicide, the death of a child, pet, or the death of a celebrity (Bell et al., 2015; Douglas et al., 2019; Hensley, 2012; Mitchell et al., 2012; Moyer & Enck, 2020; Radford & Bloch, 2012). Additionally, researchers have explored theories related to continuing bonds and the facilitation of grief communities by exploring frameworks that conceptualize openly recognized grief on digital platforms (Carroll & Landry, 2010; Walter, 2015). Scholars investigating the impact of social media on digital mourning practices demonstrate how such platforms serve as a central point of connection between the dead and their mourners, as well as between individuals and communities of mourners (Getty et al., 2011; Giaxoglou & Döveling, 2018; Willis & Ferrucci, 2017). This phenomenon is most apparent and readily examined in spaces for virtual memorials (Cann, 2014; Hess, 2007; Mitchell et al., 2012), as well as support groups for communities of mourners (Brubaker et al., 2013; Giaxoglou, 2020; Gil-Egui et al., 2017; Walter et al., 2012).
The role of social media in facilitating mourning and memoria practices is explored by scholars examining digitally mediated mourning (Kasket, 2019; Savin-Baden & Mason-Robbie, 2020; Sofka, 2020); designing technologies with death in mind (Massimi & Charise, 2009; Sofka, 1997); and the emerging digital death industry—an umbrella term for platforms that offer interactions with the deceased, such as through virtual graves, chatbots, and virtual reality (Öhman & Floridi, 2017, 2018; Stokes, 2021). Research at the intersection of death and technology considers the ethics of digital representations of the dead in the context of personhood (Meese et al., 2015; Stokes, 2019, 2021); agency (Harper, 2010; Paris, 2021); and postmortem privacy (Birnhack & Morse, 2022; Buitelaar, 2017; Harbinja et al., 2024). Additionally, scholars such as Recuber (2023) demonstrate how individuals leverage such technologies and platforms to navigate selfhood and narrative freedom when confronted with mortality, while Sutherland (2023) considers media misrepresentations and biases in digital representations of the dead. To date, however, the intricacies of how social media users navigate and negotiate their experiences with confronting death, grief, and memorialization content on TikTok remain underexplored (Eriksson Krutrök, 2021).
On TikTok
honesty … yesterday was a bad day for me. today I’m seeing all these videos and starting to feel positive. seems like tiktok can hear my heart [sic].
TikTok user (posted April 28, 2023)
Beyond its allure as a platform for entertainment and creative expression, TikTok is emerging as a transformative space of connection. The platform's features allow users to create and share short videos, integrate music and audio sounds, or respond to other videos (Kaye et al., 2022). Users record content ranging from 15 s to 10 min directly from their devices onto the platform, where they can add music, voiceovers, special effects, or filters (Cheng & Li, 2023). Additional affordances such as the “Use this Sound” button found with trending sound or music (Mordecai, 2023) or audio-based memes (Eriksson Krutrök, 2023) encourage participation in the creation of content. Participating on TikTok is not complicated: users are not required to have extensive knowledge of video production (Bartolome & Niu, 2023), and though TikTok is branded as a social media platform, its emphasis on shareable and algorithmically driven content dilutes the importance other platforms like Facebook or Instagram place on following friends (Bhandari & Bimo, 2022; Zulli & Zulli, 2020).
While user-generated content plays a significant role in shaping TikTok's content landscape, the real engine of the platform is the underlying algorithm, which drives the platform's content discovery and distribution process. To provide an engaging experience, the For You Page (or “FYP”) is designed as the default landing page of the app, where users are automatically exposed to videos and can scroll through content or click on icons at the bottom of the screen to exit the page. This design gives the impression that the FYP is a curated selection of content tailored specifically for each user, which, in turn, promotes engagement on the platform (Bhandari & Bimo, 2022; Kaye et al., 2022). This is perhaps the key driver of the platform as users are more likely to spend time with the app scrolling and interacting with videos they find engaging. Compared to other short-form video platforms designed to allow users access to content that may require them to search manually, TikTok exposes users to a broad range of content, including videos that may not be immediately relevant. These seemingly serendipitous discoveries (Schellewald, 2023) allow for a more diverse and inclusive user experience without having to actively participate or engage (i.e., by liking, sharing, saving, commenting, or following) with the content or content creator.
Because of the effectiveness of the TikTok algorithm, users may perceive the platform as more than just a space for passively scrolling through videos. The algorithm is perceived as having the uncanny ability to “hear the heart” of its users, as evidenced by the accurate content it recommends and delivers. Reacting to the accuracy of the algorithm, users attribute to it a sense of personal understanding and may perceive a sense of connection with the content that resonates deeply with their emotions and interests. This leads to a unique form of digital resonance amongst TikTok users. For many, TikTok has become a “safe space” (Eriksson Krutrök, 2021), and the platform continues to evolve into a digital sanctuary for users to seek validation, resonance, and companionship with each other and the personalized algorithm (Bhandari & Bimo, 2022). At the same time, the “black box” (Reviglio & Agosti, 2020) nature of algorithms means they remain somewhat mysterious to users, who cannot always explain how and why they encounter content or where content they create will go. This type of uncertainty has led to theorizing about the algorithmic unknown, including Bucher's (2017) concept of algorithmic imaginary (beliefs, perceptions, and expectations related to what an algorithm is and what it is capable of); Bishop's (2018) notion of algorithm gossip (spread of speculations on the inner workings and functions of algorithmic systems); and algorithmic lore as it relates to handed down narratives that “exist in tension with official accounts” (Savolainen, 2022, p. 1092).
On Mourning and Memoria on TikTok
Eriksson Krutrök considers TikTok as a “safe space” in the specific context of users navigating experiences of grief and the grieving process (Eriksson Krutrök, 2021, 2023). These types of experiences are shared in different ways on the app. For example, content creators share personal stories of their loss and grief by documenting rituals of mourning and memoria, such as the traditional practice of visiting gravesites or speaking to the deceased. While mourners seeking solace, guidance, and connection have always engaged in various forms of communication with deceased loved ones (Getty et al., 2011; Kasket, 2012; Walter, 2015), Walter et al. (2012) show how, with the advent of Web 2.0 and the growing tendency to mourn on online platforms, these conversations with the dead are no longer private but instead carried out visibly within social networks and sometimes to an immense and global audience.
In addition to grieving alongside other TikTok users, content creators can also build on the platform's affordances to create collaborative memorial projects, for example, by participating in trends and memes, such as the trend of recreating pictures with their deceased loved ones, set to the backdrop of a popular song. These trends invite other TikTok users to join a larger conversation and contribute their own experiences to the repository of death, grief, and memorialization content on TikTok, actively cocreating and shaping TikTok into a dynamic space of mourning and memoria.
As Proust (2023) observes, social media platforms “can serve as existential terrains for reflecting on mortality and the challenge of finding words to talk about it” (p. 4). By incorporating “elements beyond verbal language (such as images, emojis, and sounds)” (Proust, 2023, p. 4), TikTok, in particular, can enable more complex expressions of grief in the pursuit of emotional healing. Digital ritualization practices enable TikTok users to find connection with others experiencing similar situations, creating a “platform vernacular” of shared spaces and experiences (Gibbs et al., 2015), and generating a sense of “algorithmic closeness” (Eriksson Krutrök, 2021) that allows “for more open conversations and expressions of grief” and contributes to the feeling of a safe space (p. 3). As the literature on grief and memorialization on TikTok remains sparse, this article contributes to the ever-increasing literature on digital mourning and memorialization by considering how these practices manifest and continue to evolve on this new(er) platform.
Methodology
Data Collection
The research discussed in this article is part of a wider study on TikTok and death and grieving conducted by the first author as part of their doctoral work, cosupervised by the second author. For this study, we collected and analyzed shared user content on what is known as “#grieftok.” The suffix “-tok” is used to describe user-perceived, informal, topic-based “communities” clustered around themes and formed through particular hashtags or viewing patterns (Schaadhardt et al., 2023). These clustered communities are generated through the organic engagement of users with the recommendation algorithm embedded in the system. As Eriksson Krutrök's (2021) research highlights, #grieftok content often involves personal stories, visual tributes, and creative expressions of loss. In alignment with Eriksson Krutrök's (2021, 2023) analysis of hashtags associated with grief, this study employs a data collection strategy of deliberately collecting content by searching for particular hashtags, with consideration accorded to hashtags such as “#griefjourney” and “#grieving” because of their high usage and visibility.
As we collected content through #griefjourney and #grieving hashtags, we used specific criteria to select narratives for analysis. Some content amalgamated through the shared use of hashtags features narratives of grief; others convey moments of remembrance and reflection, while others may refer to grief in a broader context. Our criteria for inclusion in the study included: (a) authenticity and personal experience where the content features personal narratives of grief that reflected the individual experience rather than general commentary; (b) engagement metrics where videos with significant likes, comments, and shares were prioritized, as such metrics indicate that the content resonates with a broader audience; (c) diversity of narratives where selected content included different types of loss (e.g., parental loss, spousal loss, etc.), and differing modes of expression (e.g., visual storytelling, music only, photo carousel, etc.); and (d) visual and textual where selected content must have visual and/or textual elements that allow for analysis.
Within the described parameters, the content selected for review for this study included videos created by people grieving the loss of a child, of a spouse, of a parent, and of a grandparent. We also reviewed content related to anticipatory grief and content where creators recounted personal grief experiences but did not specify who they were mourning. The TikToks we considered were created in a variety of styles, making use of different platform affordances, including voiceovers, background music, text overlays, and photo montages.
We examined the selected content and noted visual and textual features, the context of the loss, and the unique aspects presented in each grief narrative. We also considered the engagement metrics of the content (i.e., likes, comments, shares) to understand how TikTok viewers may have responded to such content, and to help us identify which types of content resonated most. We then categorized the content based on the type of loss (i.e., child, parent, spouse) to ensure a diverse representation of grief experiences. Demographic backgrounds of content creators, if available, were also considered to understand how grief expressions may vary (i.e., North American, United Kingdom, gender, etc.).
In the analysis of the selected content, we examined the visual and auditory elements, as well as text overlays, captions, and any textual components, to consider how these components complement the visual elements to convey the emotional depth of the grief experience. We also considered how the content creator utilized TikTok features, such as voiceovers, background music, trending sounds, filters, and other editing tools, to enhance the grief narrative. Through the analysis of common themes and patterns, we identified three emerging narrative conventions: (a) digital diary; (b) cocreation with the dead; and (c) trends, which we discuss in the next sections.
Our study is exploratory and our analysis of narrative conventions, and the issues and themes they highlight, aims to provide insights into the emerging trends and evolution of mourning and memoria practices on TikTok, specifically. Given the dynamic and expansive nature of the platform, the findings of our study are not comprehensive or generalizable.
Ethical Considerations
Despite the public nature of social media platforms, the intimate and sensitive nature of such content raises questions about the reasonable expectation of privacy for content creators and platform users. While ethics exemptions for this study apply, 1 complexity arises in discerning the boundaries of users’ expectation of privacy on TikTok; although TikTok is an open, public platform, creators and commenters may not expect—and may not wish—their contributions to be used in a research study. Guided by guidelines set forth by organizations such as the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) and personal reflection on ethical principles, we have removed all handles and other identifying information to protect user privacy. Due to the porous and ephemeral nature of TikTok, it is significantly more challenging to search for and locate specific quotes compared to more text-based social media platforms, which provides further privacy protections for creators.
Analysis of Grief Narratives on TikTok
In the remainder of this article, we explore three developing narrative conventions for grief and death-related posts on TikTok, using examples from our data collection. This is not an exhaustive categorization of the different ways TikTok content creators are narrating their first-hand experiences of death and grief, but it allows us to identify emerging themes and implications related to these new narrative forms, and to begin to characterize the nature of death and grieving narratives as they continue to evolve on the platform.
TikTok as a Digital Diary
Its 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep cause every time I close my eyes I just see my beautiful wife and it makes me feel so sad and it makes me feel so anxious and my thoughts are just racing and I try my best to ground myself and bring it back and I’ve got all the skills to do that but realistically it's just so hard…
TikTok user (posted April 10, 2024)
Marwick (2013, p. 208) describes the phenomenon of “lifestreaming,” or the “ongoing sharing of personal information to a networked audience,” which Berryman and Kavka (2018, p. 88) suggest “encourages individuals to feel comfortable with (and validated by) documenting (and sharing) their everyday lives—however exceptional, intimate or mundane.” Content creators on social media platforms have normalized the narration and broadcasting of their experiences, and this carries over into TikTok, where experiences of grief (arguably simultaneously exceptional, intimate and mundane) can be documented in real time and shared with others.
For instance, in a series of what they call “grief diaries,” the TikTok user, in the above quote, documents their day-to-day struggles and reflections following the loss of their wife. In one video, they talk about picking out their wife's burial outfit; in another, they are crying in the car, relating how it feels to have been told by the funeral home that this was the last time they would physically see their wife. The viewers see the TikTok user in their homes and in their car; they face the camera, establishing an intimate connection with viewers, and directly address viewers, sometimes posing questions like “this is hard, isn’t it?” to suggest they are involved in a conversation with them. In one video, they engage directly with the comments of viewers who asked how they could be so strong in light of what they have experienced, furthering the sense that they are in conversation with their viewers as they go about the daily work of grieving a profound loss.
These grief diaries reflect an evolving practice of diary writing, which has migrated online in various forms, including blogging, microblogging and vlogging, on platforms such as Twitter/X, Instagram and YouTube. The grief diaries are part of the phenomenon of “ongoing sharing” described by Berryman and Kavka (2018) and share similarities with both traditional, analog diary writing (self-representation; dailiness or connection to the day-to-day life of the writer; immediacy; expectations of authenticity; etc. (Cottam, 2001; Wiener & Rosenwald, 1993)) and with online diary writing in, for example, personal blogs, where the shift from more private reflection to public presentation introduced both opportunities for connection and challenges to privacy (McNeill, 2003; Rettberg, 2020). The affordances of the TikTok platform create some key differences. For example, on TikTok, there is an increased sense of intimacy created by the video medium, the visibility of the “diarist's” face and the sound of their voice. This sense of intimacy can be enhanced, too, by the inclusion of music and other effects used to create particular moods or affects. In addition, the tension between privacy and publicity, which has always been an aspect of diary writing and is a key feature of online diaries, is at a different scale on TikTok. Morrison's (2011) work on digital intimate publics and mommyblogging show how bloggers used the technosocial affordances of blogging platforms and conventions around pseudonymity to establish and maintain community boundaries and expectations of limited publicity; Douglas (2021) explores these tactics in online grief communities to show how privacy is negotiated in arguably more vulnerable communities. TikTok's much broader public and the uncertain nature of where content will be shared (i.e., on Instagram “reels” or YouTube “shorts”) or how it will be received (i.e., videos that “go viral”) create a novel environment. As Eriksson Krutrök (2021) describes, this environment is one where users must navigate the complexities of a vast, yet often unpredictable audience, which may make the management of personal grief narratives unpredictable.
As a kind of digital diary, TikTok not only provides a space for the bereaved to process their grief, but also allows them to revisit and reflect on their grieving journey in a communal and interactive environment, that is often supportive and may be therapeutic (Locke, 2023; Milton et al., 2023). In this way, TikTok grief diaries not only serve as spaces of personal reflection but also function as communal resources where viewers leave comments offering words of empathy, and encouragement, and perhaps find reassurance or confirmation that their experiences are “normal” (Sofka, 2012). The sense of a digital safe space created through “algorithmic closeness” (Eriksson Krutrök, 2021) on the TikTok platform is enhanced through creators’ intimacy-building tactics (filming in private, domestic spaces; facing the camera; “conversing” with viewers, etc.). These tactics also reflect how bereaved creators assert agency and control, experiencing grief on their own terms and “de-tabooizing” rituals and expressions of grief by situating them within the daily and domestic.
TikTok as Cocreation With the Dead
A second narrative convention we observed on #grieftok involves bereaved creators incorporating content created by the deceased, using what Lingel (2013) and others (Sutherland, 2023) have called digital remains, which might include photographs, video and voice and sound recordings of the dead. For example, one content creator used digital voice recordings made while her husband was alive to create and share photos and videos of him playing and interacting with their dog after his death. The video montage captioned “[Lucky] was born to be your dog—he is lost without you, babe,” captures various moments of playfulness and companionship between her husband and their dog. His tearful voice overlays the video and speaks lovingly to the dog: “I couldn’t have asked for a better puppers … look out for your family, look out for your brother and your mother.” This type of cocreation with the deceased continues the husband's presence despite his physical absence, through the perspective of the grieving widow.
More traditional mourning practices also include actions that are often directed to the deceased (i.e., speaking to the deceased at graveyards, etc.) and involve continuing a relationship. As King and Carter (2022) note, drawing on Klass et al.'s (1996) work on continuing bonds, Relationships between the bereaved and the deceased do not terminate after death. The mourner performs actions directed towards the deceased in private to continue the bond, suggesting grief is an everlasting process. This theory has been widely supported by the traditional grieving practices performed by mourners including: preserving memories of the deceased, visiting their graves, celebrating birthdays and looking through photographs (Currier et al., 2015; Klass et al., 1996). (King & Carter, 2022, p. 2).
The creation of posts on TikTok that directly incorporate digital remains of the dead allows bereaved creators to enact continuing bonds in novel ways; in the video that allows the man to “interact” with his dog, for example, we see a literal, visual continuation of a relationship. In another example, a TikTok creator shares 35 photographs of her grief journey after losing her spouse, set to soft background music and captioned “Things that happened after you left.” The montage includes photos from the accident site with the text, “Drove myself crazy trying to find the answers I never would get”; a beach photo with the text, “I lost 30 lbs”; and a photo of a living room with the text, “Moved into a new apartment trying to start fresh but I felt so alone.” The montage ends with a photo of the deceased and the text, “Rest in peace my love.” Instead of interaction with a loved one's profile or a communal tribute page, cocreation with the dead involves the dynamic recreation of the deceased's digital remains to tell a story from the griever's perspective.
Working with digital remains allows for continuous interaction and ongoing connection, exposed in a highly public domain, demonstrating the shift in the way grief and continuing bonds are expressed and suggesting a layer of interaction facilitated by the social dynamics of TikTok. Even when directly incorporating and interacting with digital remains of the dead, mourners on TikTok seem to be communicating to their audience more so than to the deceased themselves. While direct communication with the deceased is beneficial, the communal aspect of TikTok may serve to support the mourner through the sharing of collective empathy (in the comments sections) and validation of experience; though more research is needed to understand this phenomenon fully, it may demonstrate that in this new platform environment, expressions of grief and mourning become increasingly directed toward an audience, potentially representing a shift in the kinds of relationships being prioritized from those between the mourner and the deceased to those between the mourner and their online communities.
Trends
As TikTok's trend-driven environment encourages users to participate in popular formats of videos and performative acts, a third narrative convention involves creators participating in TikTok trends and adapting them to speak to personal experiences of grief and loss. Trends refer to rapidly circulating themes or content styles that gain widespread popularity, driven by TikTok's algorithm and user participation through engagement, including likes, shares, duets, and recreations (Zulli & Zulli, 2020).
In the quote that opens this article (“I’m a grieving mom, I will keep his bedroom like a shrine for as long as I want to”), the TikTok creator has participated in the popular #ofcourse trend to share her grief and frustration after the loss of her son. By participating in the trend, which engages with stereotypes about professions or identities, the creator highlights the stereotypical perceptions of a grieving mom—some of which may not align with societal norms—and invites her audience into her grieving process. By sharing her grief story through participation in this popular trend, the creator uses the affordances of TikTok to immediately connect to a potential community of support and understanding for the raw and intimate experience of child loss.
The repetition of “I'm a grieving mom” serves as a reminder of her identity and her current ongoing grieving (present tense). With each “I'm a grieving mom, of course I…” she is reinforcing her pain, her coping strategies, and her defiance against the societal norms and expectations of how grief should be expressed (Lacey, 2023). Participation in this particular trend emphasizes the complexity of parental bereavement—an experience that resonates with her viewers as evidenced by the engagement metrics of her videos and comments. Yet, though comments are mostly filled with messages of empathy and shared experiences, the very public nature of TikTok and the connection to a popular trend mean that the content creator is also exposing herself and her grief to a wide and potentially unsympathetic audience where she may be subjected to negative comments, misinterpretations, grief policing and trolling (Gach et al., 2017; Phillips, 2015).
Discussion
While our exploration of emerging conventions of first-person grief narratives on TikTok is not exhaustive, it does surface several important themes. These themes provide a deeper understanding of how users express grief in ways that are both conventional and novel and suggest areas where further research can elaborate our understanding of evolving digital mourning and memoria practices.
Centralised Versus Decentralised Mourning Spaces: Facebook Versus TikTok
When we consider public and digitally mediated mourning (Giaxoglou & Döveling, 2018), Facebook stands out as the most prominent and enduring social media platform. Launched in 2003 as a virtual space for connection, affirmation, and community for college students, Facebook was not designed with the dead in mind (McCallig, 2014). In fact, before memorializing profile pages, Facebook's nascent policy was to delete dead users from the platform (Kasket, 2019). That policy changed after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, which resulted in the deaths of 32 people, many of whom were students of Virginia Tech (Kneese, 2023). In the aftermath of the event, Facebook transformed into a public outlet for mourning: Facebook memorialization groups were created; profiles of the dead served as a sacred space to grieve; and mourners engaged with the affordances of the platform to showcase new rituals, such as generating virtual badges, or changing profile photos to black ribbons (Kneese, 2023). Mourners called for Facebook to consider the ethical and pragmatic implications of deleting the profiles of the victims (Kasket, 2019), and Facebook groups, like “Facebook Memorialization is Misguided: Dead Friends Are Still People,” protested against the platform's practice of deletion (Kneese, 2023). Ultimately, the tragedy of Virginia Tech became the catalyst for the transformation of Facebook into a digital space of mourning. And now, with an estimated 50 million profiles of dead users, Facebook is the world's largest digital graveyard (Harrison, 2018). On Facebook, the profiles of the dead are centralized locations for collective mourning (Kasket, 2019). Friends and family leave messages, share memories, and otherwise engage with one another and the deceased through the Facebook profile. This practice creates a sense of a fixed, enduring, communal space that revolves around the deceased.
By contrast, TikTok's decentralized nature contributes to a dispersed, individualized approach to mourning. Content creators leverage the platform's affordances and features to curate and share content related to deceased loved ones. In this way, the deceased are symbolically brought back to life through curated and shared narratives, photos, videos, and voice recordings—even if they (the deceased) never used the platform themselves. On TikTok, the bereaved create a digital social presence of the dead. Furthermore, on TikTok, the agency remains with the living (often the bereaved) who continue to share and curate the digital artifacts and narratives of the deceased, thus contributing to an active and continuous process of memoria on the platform that is not—and does not need to be—attached to an enduring site of mourning.
Agency in Mourning
Although family and friends often contribute to the deceased's profile, grieving practices on Facebook are not limited to this space. Memorial pages, RIP groups created by friends and family, Tribute pages, and personal posts on the profiles of mourners themselves illustrate the diverse expressions of grief on the platform. On TikTok, the bereaved grieve on their own profiles. Users can choose how to present and ritualize their grief using the various affordances of the platform in ways that resonate personally and authentically with them and their loss. Such agency allows users to retain ownership of their grief narrative. This sense of agency may demonstrate itself as potentially therapeutic or as a means of providing continuity and connection through loss—most especially if the deceased is not on TikTok (i.e., where the mourner brings the deceased into a public domain). At the same time, the platform's user-driven nature may also increase the risk of normalizing or validating behaviors that contradict evidence-based guidance on grieving, highlighting a need for further research in this area. Through the cocreation of content that includes the dead, TikTok content creators may maintain agency where their perspective and control are prioritized, potentially leading to a more empowered and dignified grieving process.
While our example of cocreating content with the deceased illustrates the dignified and therapeutic elements of such practices, it is critical to recognize that not all examples consider the digital dignity of the dead (Becker, 2022; Bruneault et al., 2023). In cases of more public and tragic deaths, the widespread and porous nature of TikTok can lead to wider ethical concerns. For instance, in the context of public grieving of high-profile tragedies (i.e., murder cases, celebrity deaths), considerations for the digital dignity of the dead include ensuring the privacy and consent of personal information, respectful representation of the deceased, and potential for the misinterpretation or exploitation of the deceased and their cause of death. Such considerations for the digital dignity of the dead can help create baseline guidelines that account for the agency of the bereaved and the digital dignity of the dead on social media.
Our exploration highlights how TikTok enables bereaved content creators to maintain their agency in the mourning process, while also revealing the need for more in-depth research that directly engages with content creators to better understand both their intentions and the impact of sharing grief on the platform. Given TikTok's unique design and affordances, which may shape these impacts differently than other platforms, future research could explore the specific dynamics of digital grief expression to establish guidelines on its potential benefits and challenges. Moreover, future research engaging bereaved content creators must prioritize ethical considerations, drawing on existing guidelines for social media research as suggested by AoIR (Franzke et al., 2020), the British Sociological Association's recommendations for digital research (British Sociological Association, 2019), and Cupit's (2012) guidance on conducting research with the bereaved.
Safe Spaces and Community
Eriksson Krutrök's perception of TikTok as a safe space emphasizes the workings of the TikTok algorithm, which appears to allow users to curate a feed that reflects their own interests, creating for them a sense of “algorithmic closeness.” Sot's (2022) study of intimacy and safe spaces on TikTok also finds that participants’ perception of control over the algorithm through “extensive interaction” with it allows them to curate a “safe space where like-minded (and anonymous) people can come together and be their real selves and avoid unwanted negative attention of ‘the outsiders’” (p. 1498–1499, 1500). The sense of intimacy is strengthened through the “cozy” conventions of “conversing with the screen in a comfortable home environment” (Sot, 2022, p. 1500). Within these intimate, “safe” communities, “members are able to express emotions with their peers” and develop and evolve their own conventions of grieving, which often include the “unconventional displays of grief” (e.g., crying in the car or while putting on makeup) that are “not only allowed, but encouraged as community practice” (Eriksson Krutrök, 2021, p. 9).
Unlike earlier social media platforms that required users to follow others to curate and build community, TikTok's algorithm decides content circulation. Bhandari and Bimo (2022) explain that TikTok's design “obfuscates the interaction types which make up the bulk of social activity in digital spaces (i.e., activities that connect users)” and “decenters the traditionally ‘social’ activity” by relying on the For You algorithm to understand users’ personalities and interests (p. 5). As explained above, this efficiency can cause users to feel as though the algorithm is listening to and understanding them; users describe having an evolving relationship with the TikTok algorithm, often using “distinctly personifying and humanizing language” to describe it (Bhandari & Bimo, 2022, p. 5). However, due to the black box nature of the algorithm, it is not clear how much control users have over the content they see on the platform.
Studies of earlier online grieving reveal the many measures participants might take to create safe spaces, including using privacy settings on platforms like Facebook and creating password-protected and/or moderated online communities. Morrison's (2011) analysis of “intimate publics” online highlights the strategic network building that allows for boundary settings to keep communities safe (Douglas, 2021).
On TikTok, it is not clear whether reliance on the For You algorithm permits this same type of networked enclosure; creators who might feel they have curated a safe corner for their grief are still circulating content in a highly public space. Sharing personal narratives on such a public platform raises concerns about privacy for both the content creator (possibility for exploitation) as well as for those who comment on the content; these concerns are exacerbated as TikTok videos can and often do get shared on other platforms without the original content creator knowing.
Although TikTok can provide the bereaved with empathy and support through comments, likes, and shares, creating a sense of collective experience and of not being alone in their grief, the platform ultimately prioritizes content consumption over community. As Schellewald (2022) explains, the TikTok environment, Does not take the form of a tight-knit community in which mutuals provide continuous support for each other. Instead, it is a more abstract formation that, so to speak, brings light into darkness. Scattered throughout online spaces like TikTok, these small stories enable people to see the TikTok algorithm and themselves in relation to it. (Schellewald, 2022, p. 8).
Ephemerality and Permanence
On TikTok, fleeting, short-form videos appear and disappear in a way that stands in stark contrast to, for example, digital memorials such as Facebook memorialization profiles or pages, which are structured to endure. On one hand, the temporary nature of TikTok allows users to express their feelings in the moment without the expectation that the content will be permanently available. On the other hand, the transient quality of such content may not provide the lasting memorial or space of reflection that content creators may be seeking from the platform and that researchers have found has helped some people in their grieving process (Bell et al., 2015; Mitchell et al., 2012). This sense of loss can be compounded by the phenomenon of “second loss” (Bassett, 2018) where the deletion or disappearance of digital memorials can be experienced as traumatic by the users who rely on these spaces for ongoing commemoration.
Khumairoh describes a potential “mummification” process in online mourning, suggesting that, “The presence of social media allows the “mummification” of memories of the deceased in cyberspace in the form of a digital persona … individuals can revive the status of husband-wife, fan-celebrity, or child-parent through online activities, even in the form of one-way communication” (Khumairoh, 2023, p. 88); the ephemeral nature of TikTok renders it an evolving space where mourning and memorialization are continuously shaped and reshaped as the platform allows for spontaneous, varied, and personal expressions of grief to proliferate and change over time.
The fluid, ephemeral, and relatively porous space of TikTok allows content creators to document their experiences of loss, share their stories and memories, and interact with a community of mourners in dynamic and immediate ways. However, tension is introduced between the ephemerality of content on the TikTok platform and the desire for permanent or enduring commemoration common to online memoria. This tension creates a new and novel space of mourning and memoria, where the longer-term effects of commemorative practices remain to be seen, and demonstrates yet another significant aspect of how TikTok reshapes digital grief practices within the broader realm of social media platforms.
Commodification of Grief
Another potential concern with utilizing TikTok as a space for expressions of grief is that the platform's design and features encourage short, engaging videos which may inadvertently commodify the deeply personal experience of loss. The concern that TikTok's affordances may encourage the commodification of grief is valid: grief is nuanced and complex, but grief content can and will be reduced to consumable content when stripped of its context. This emphasis on content consumption could lead to a shift in the focus of the grief narrative, from the relationship between the mourner and the deceased to the relationship between the mourner and their online audience instead. Trends, challenges, sounds, and filters can all contribute to this commodification by encouraging users to present their grief in specific, often simplified or engaging ways that promote views and potential financial gain.
The opportunity to monetize content through avenues like the TikTok Creativity Program, 2 sponsorships, brand deals, and partnerships raises ethical questions about exploiting personal grief for profit. While acknowledging that this monetization could offer needed financial support to content creators (some of whom may need this support), it also raises concerns regarding the commodification of personal loss and the compromising of the integrity of digital mourning. This is particularly concerning given the porous nature of TikTok, where content can be easily shared and potentially used by others without the original content creator's knowledge or consent. Thus, pressure to create short, engaging content for monetization, and the platform's design that prioritizes content consumption, may contribute to a potentially exploitative portrayal of grief.
Conclusion
In the context of death, grief, and memorialization content, TikTok provides space to explore the multifaceted and evolving dimensions of mourning and memoria on social media. As has happened with other social media platforms, the sociotechnical affordances of TikTok shape how the bereaved express grief, continue bonds with their deceased loved ones and find communities of support. TikTok introduces several new affordances that affect how these processes occur, including the ability to interweave different media and establish intimacy through user-created video content; the highly public, collaborative and decentralized nature of the platform; the prevalence of the “For You Page” algorithm; etc. Our analysis of these affordances and the emerging narrative conventions employed by grieving content creators suggests several lines of continuing research and inquiry. Exploring how users navigate and negotiate death, grief, and memorialization on TikTok leads to further insights into why users create such content and how others respond. For instance, the themes and narrative messages emerging through these interactions can be further studied by examining the comment sections, analyzing user engagement metrics, and considering how the platform's features shape the portrayal and reception of death-related content. These insights can then be further analyzed to compare and contrast the intricate ways in which social media platforms are appropriated for mourning and memoria purposes, and how platform-specific affordances influence and reflect societal responses to death-related content.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
