The Potential of Online True Crime: Participatory Investigation,Affective Solidarity,and the Search for Gabby Petito

Abstract

This article examines TikTokers’ criminal investigations through a case study of Gabby Petito. I argue that those investigating Petito’s case comprised a complex network that enabled Petito’s body to be found and discussions of inequitable and insufficient policing to flourish. I refer to active members of that network as participatory investigators. In the wake of the Petito case, some participatory investigators interpellated by postfeminism expanded their boundaries of shared identity. They reconceptualized their collective power to not only acknowledge the systemic precarity of white, neoliberal femininity under patriarchy but also to acknowledge the precarity of non-white people under white supremacy. As they expand their boundaries of coalition, they adopt politicized framings that subvert post-feminist values of individualism, optimism, and self-reliance. For some TikTokers, this brought about an affective solidarity that engendered a politicized and intersectional feminism, specifically in the form of advocacy for missing and murdered Black and Indigenous people.