Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article examines TikTok videos created and shared by partners of incarcerated individuals, using hashtags including #prisonwifetiktok, #prisonwifelife, #prisonlove, #prisongirlfriends, and #prisonmail. The research explores how these partners depict their relationships with incarcerated people on TikTok and how prison communities use the platform to discuss shared challenges. A key focus is on videos showcasing letter exchanges between couples, which are longer, more frequent, and emotionally intense than other videos. These TikToks serve as a platform for sharing grievances and connecting with others in similar situations, making private emotions public to spark conversations about the hardships faced by incarcerated individuals and their loved ones. The study analyzes 74 “letter TikToks” from five accounts run by prison partners, focusing on videos that highlight communication challenges, the emotional struggles of maintaining a prison relationship, the sentimental rewards of #prisonlove, attempts to destigmatize both themselves and their partners, and efforts to leverage their image as devoted partners to build trust as influencers. The article argues that these TikToks act as alternative archives, reshaping communication between prison partners by remediating letters through a medium free from penitentiary control and incorporating supportive prison communities into the couples’ dialogue.

Keywords

Partners of incarcerated people prison communities prison letters relationships in prison TikTok prison

[Kelly]:

This is awesome! I was released 11/20/20. I know how much my letters meant to my children and the rest of the fam and vice versa!

[Lena]:

Amazing congrats on being home almost a year!

[Kelly]:

Thank u! keep strong queen! ur awesome and amazing for sticking this through! Ur enough as well!¹

Back-to-back comments and replies under a TikTok video show the bonding between Kelly, a formerly incarcerated woman, and Lena, a self-identified prison wife from the UK who is married to Ethan, serving time in a US prison. In the video, Lena displays hand-written love letters and drawings she received from Ethan. Lena places a hand on Ethan’s hand trace, evoking a sense of holding hands as if they were physically together. In this muted video, Lena looks at the camera and sheds tears. Alongside Kelly’s remarks, this video evokes further emotional reactions from followers, who express sympathy through comments such as, “I have never been so invested and excited for a love story,” “Wow he is so in love with you. . . a beautiful prison love story,” or “honestly you have a better relationship than most people do [. . .] He’s everyone’s dream man and you have him.” As a prison wife who met her husband through writeapenpal.com, a website that facilitates connections between incarcerated individuals and those outside prison walls through letter exchanges, letters appear recurrently in Lena’s TikTok posts. Lena’s profile is dedicated to dismantling the stigma around incarceration and having a relationship with a person in prison. These videos reveal the couple’s intimate bond through letters and crafts exchanged and create a public dialogue about their relationship.

Criminology and prison studies have increasingly paid attention to the impact of imprisonment on the partners and families, their troubles and coping mechanisms, and efforts to maintain their relationships during the sentence (Braman, 2004; Comfort, 2007; Fishman 1984; Hutton and Moran, 2019; Kotova, 2019; Nickels, 2020). One of the main concerns of partners is being forced to be invisible to the public due to their fears of stigmatization (Brink, 2003). While social media use of incarcerated people and the need for democratic media access in prisons are being discussed (Jewkes and Reisdorf, 2016; PCARE, 2007; Perkins et al., 2018), the ways that partners of incarcerated people publicize and express their struggles and emotions in social media are understudied. This research aims to contribute to the growing literature on prison communities’ use of popular social media, especially TikTok for crafting self-representation, maintaining relationships across the prison, and resisting stigmatization (Borello et al., 2020; Chedeville, 2021; Duhaime-Ross, 2020a, 2020b; Reid and Niebuhr, 2022; Schlosser and Feldman, 2022). The current study extends this line of research beyond its focus on men in prison. It explores women prison partners’ efforts to establish a community around their struggles by sharing their letters on social media.

This article explores TikTok videos made and shared by the partners of incarcerated people under hashtags #prisonwifetiktok, #prisonwifelife, #prisonwife, #prisonlove, #prisongf, #inmateswife, #inmatewifey, #prisonwives, #prisongirlfriends, and #prisonmail. Among thousands of TikToks made by the partners of incarcerated people, we focus on qualitative analysis of videos on a common theme, those that discuss letter correspondence. What differentiates these videos from other TikToks is that they are the longest –from one minute thirty to three minutes forty, among 34 seconds average TikTok length (Statista, 2024)–, the most repeated, dramatic, and emotionally revealing prison partner videos. About these videos, we ask the following research questions: How do partners of incarcerated people represent their relationships on TikTok, a popular social media? What do TikTok videos reveal about the struggles and resilience of people in prison and their partners? How do prison communities establish connections over social media and what strategies do they use to resist stigmatization?

Our data consists of 74 prison TikTok videos created by five accounts along with the comments on these videos. These five women, who all met their partners through exchanging letters from prison, consistently and repeatedly share TikToks related to their identity and struggles as “prison wives” and “girlfriends” and about their correspondence with partners in US prisons. In our focus on TikTok videos of “prison wives” and “prison girlfriends” that display and discuss letters, we explore the ways that the partners of imprisoned people reflect their emotions, intimacy, and struggles in popular social media. The appearance of the epistolary form in TikTok—traditional media associated with sensuality, and intimacy (Bourdon, 2019, 2020) within new media—is central to their efforts to show devotion and loyalty, receive sympathy and support, and thereby resist stigmatization around having a relationship with an incarcerated person.

The following two sections examine the literature on prison partners’ efforts to maintain relationships during incarceration and the use of old and new media for prison communication. Then, the methodology section expands on why we chose letter TikToks by the partners of incarcerated people and how we analyze the video components and comments. This section is followed by descriptions and analysis of TikTok videos and comments. In these analyses, we focus on how partners and commenters reflect on the challenges and sentimental rewards of being in relationships with incarcerated people, their fight against stigmatization, and their search for emotional and financial support on TikTok. In our conclusion we discuss how TikTok videos contribute to prison partners’ efforts to engender a public debate about their relationship.

Maintaining relationships in prison

Research on the partners of incarcerated people shows that they deal with multiple challenges ranging from single-parenting, coping with loneliness and sexual deprivation, tackling financial and legal situations, and experiencing social stigmatization as relatives and friends may cut contact (Lowenstein, 1984). In an ethnographic study in San Quentin, California, Comfort (2007) asks why, despite all the difficulties of forced separation, women remain in or establish relationships with incarcerated men. For the partners of incarcerated people, there is “interpersonal production of rewards ‘for standing by your man’” (Comfort, 2007: 66). Among these rewards is the experience of a more emotionally fulfilling relationship since men in prison invest more in communicating their emotions, especially through letters.

Couples use diverse media to break the barriers to communication, such as short payphone recordings to leave thoughtful messages for free, or sending messages through radio announcements (Black, 2010; Nickels, 2020). Among other means of communication, letters are the primary way to maintain intimacy, unlike visits that are disrupted by the presence of other visitors and strict surveillance (Kotova, 2019). A significant percentage of couples are formed during incarceration after being pen pals (Black, 2010).

When one of the partners is in prison, the institution does not only sentence the person in prison but also regulates family relations and determines how relationships can be maintained (Enroos, 2011), while couples struggle to resist these limitations. For instance, most penitentiary institutions worldwide demand official recognition of relationships to provide visiting or intimate visit rights, documents such as birth and marriage certificates, identification cards, and criminal records. Under these regulatory penal regimes, Corrazza Padovani’s (2014) research in São Paolo and Barcelona gives insight into the resistant meaning of letters for the partners of incarcerated people. For incarcerated people and their partners what documents their “true love” and solid relationship is their correspondence, as letters “make legible, if not legitimate the partners’ intimacy” (Corazza Padovani, 2014: 366). A person in prison in Sao Paolo strives to prove their solid coupledom with another incarcerated person by showing letters and art exchanged: “She affirms that [her marriage] is pure because it is not contaminated by the prison. . . [she] responds to any questioning with her letters” (Corazza Padovani, 2014: 350). While prison bureaucracies demand partners for official proofs of coupledom to give visiting rights, for partners letters represent a resistance to this regulatory logic and reveal the real evidence of their connection.

There is a performative element that comes into play when these letters that prove the “true love” between people in prison and their partners are shared with other people or are made public. Illouz’s (2012) approach to modern love from a sociological perspective provides a useful framework to understand the publicization of letters and the dialogue they incite. Illouz argues that modern love is tightly connected to social value, recognition, and self-worth, especially for women. Illouz goes beyond the private psychological history to explain why people fall in love and remain in difficult relationships. According to the sociologist, contemporary romantic relations bestow individuals with social recognition and validation: “If. . .the lover demands to be loved, it is because in this demand lies first and foremost a social demand for recognition. . . love has become central to the constitution of worth” (Illouz, 2012: 119). Especially for the more socially vulnerable, love anchors a sense of self within the community, realizing will and desire and validating social value that is under surveillance and scrutiny.

For marginalized prison communities, this search for validation augments because of stigmatization and isolation. In an ethnographic research with women released from prison and living on parole, Opsal (2011) finds that to confront the stigma of felon identity these women recast themselves as good mothers. The identity of motherhood gives them a sense of control over their lives and futures, and an acceptable connection to their pasts (Opsal, 2011). For the marginalized, it is significant to reformulate a more socially acceptable identity, delineate its historicity and intensity, and make it public. Women in relationships with incarcerated people similarly play a publicly supportive, caring, nurturing, and gendered role of the devotional partner “no matter what difficulty this brings to their own lives” (Black, 2010: 259).

Old and new media in prison communication

Prisons are among the few spaces where letters continue to be a common mode of communication. The amount of written correspondence between people in prison and those who are outside has not changed from 1970s to 2000s (Hoffmann et al., 2007). Letters offer people in prison an affordable and relatively intimate way to reach their loved ones (Comfort, 2007). In US prisons, stamps are exchanged and used as a currency since money cannot be exchanged (Poor et al., 2019). Even though correspondence may be subject to approval and censorship of prison administrations, and in some cases, people in prison only receive photocopied versions of original letters due to fears of drug smuggling, letters are still “vital” for inspiration and motivation of incarcerated people and their loved ones (Chen, 2022). For incarcerated people, letters show “efforts to cross walls and borders” (Corazza Padovani, 2014: 346).

It is crucial for incarcerated people to maintain their connection with friends and families in the outside world to be able to cope with prison and when they lack such support they post ads to search for pen pals (Tewksbury, 2005). Through exchanging letters, people in prison seek various forms of support, including friendship, romance, non-judgemental dialogue, and help with reentry into society (Majia-O’Donnell, 2019). Annual visitor counts to prisons are decreasing and letters are becoming even more significant for people in prison to connect with the outside world, yet, who writes to them and what is being exchanged is difficult to study for reasons of privacy (Weichselbaum, 2015). Their richness is revealed in articles by activists and scholars who exchange letters with people in prison on topics ranging from TV shows, yoga and meditation, childhood traumas, loneliness, harassment by prison guards, and being a lifer (Margolin, 2017; Majia-O’Donnell, 2019; Weichselbaum, 2015), to the creativity and hopes of people in death row (Kohn, 2012; Maybin, 1999, 2006), and abolitionist activism (Hartnett et al., 2011). Thus, letter TikToks have the potential to provide unprecedented insight into prison letters and the relationships of prison couples.

TikTok has been criticized for suppressing the visibility of marginalized identities through discriminatory algorithms (Bacchi, 2020; Kover and Reuter, 2019). In spite of these critiques, the platform renders the quotidian life in prison visible in #tiktokprison. Risking years added to their sentence, incarcerated people use contraband phones to shoot and share self-made videos, in which they make practical recipes, dance, and sing or show the deteriorating conditions of prisons. Such TikToks enable imprisoned people who have limited media access to express themselves and their struggles (Borello et al., 2020; Chedeville, 2021; Duhaime-Ross, 2020a, 2020b; Reid and Niebuhr, 2022; Schlosser and Feldman, 2022). Therefore despite its potential for algorithmic bias, TikTok can provide a platform for the expression of marginalized communities.

This is possibly thanks to its self-representation and networking practices that differ from other social media platforms. The algorithm-ridden “For You” page facilitates discovering content posted by and increase the visibility of people who do not have social networks and many followers on other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram (Taulli, 2020). While Facebook and Instagram enable people to engage with their already established social connections, TikTok users follow (and are navigated by the algorithm towards) content based on their interests rather than the identity of creators (Bhandari and Bimo, 2022). The content creators on TikTok state that the platform’s anonymity cultivates intimacy among users (Şot, 2022). Supported by shared passions, emotional hardships, and experiences of receiving toxic comments on other social media platforms, users describe this intimacy as an “honest and unpretentious bonds formed with other individuals in a safe, comfortable, and homelike environment where they can be themselves and speak their minds without the fear of being harassed” (Şot, 2022: 14).

Methodology

Research on TikTok is an emergent area in the social media field, with data collection practices and management of ethical issues continuing to evolve. Considering TikTok’s popularity with minor users, Kanthawala et al. (2022) problematize utilizing publicly available data from the platform, which might include minor users’ data.

Similar issues arise concerning TikToks of imprisoned people. Our initial intention was to research #prisontiktok. We started following the TikTok accounts of people in prison that appeared in the reporting of various news outlets (Borello et al., 2020; Duhaime-Ross, 2020a, 2020b; Chedeville, 2021). Even though the content of these videos is legal and public (mainly containing dancing, singing, cooking, and workouts) the videos are illicitly made by a vulnerable population since cellphone use is not permitted in prisons, and being caught with a phone puts people in prison in the risk of time added to their sentence. Hence, there are ethical concerns that arise from the collection and storage of data that may risk the well-being of these communities. We could have anonymized account information yet this does not alter the data collection process, which involves gathering and storing illicit videos made by imprisoned people whose faces are fully visible. Therefore, the ethics issues (both institutional and processual) around the collection and use of so-called clandestine work are considerable, and unauthorized access to and misuse of this gathered data could harm the safety and well-being of people in prison who make TikTok videos.²

While retaining our focus on the expression and struggles of prison communities, we shifted our analysis to the videos made by #prisonwives and #prisongirlfriends whose visibility does not render them vulnerable to criminal charges yet is significant for offering insight into prison relationships and their own struggle and well-being. Furthermore, as mentioned above prison TikToks contain workout routines, singing and practical recipes, which shows their effort to contribute to TikTok trends, portray themselves as ordinary people to undermine stereotypes about them, and not to draw prison authorities’ attention. Prison partners also share snippets of their daily lives, including gym visits, and shopping to display everyday activities, a modality of posting encouraged by TikTok. Yet their content mainly addresses life with an incarcerated partner. Even in shopping videos, for instance, they humorously show how they buy a wireless bra or a long skirt for prison visits.

We set up two TikTok accounts, and shared and thereupon created a private repository of videos via TikTok’s direct messaging (DM). We used the platform’s DM as a research archive and a tool enabling our dialogue. We began the research with #prisonwives and #prisongirlfriends to get a general overview of the posting activities of the content creators. Amaral’s (2020) study on Brazilian prison wives and girlfriends’ TikToks similarly explores recurrent videos, those that depict these women dancing to Brazilian music while they explain their and their partners’ problems. A recurrent subgenre we observed is prison release videos, which film a partner walking outside the prison as a significant other runs towards the partner. By their nature, these videos can only be made upon release and often only once per content creator. Hence, we decided to focus on #prisonwives and #prisongirlfriends that produce more than 20 videos on the prison theme, and explored recurrent sub-themes. This led us to repeated videos showing and discussing prison letters. Then, we navigated the stream of videos under #prisonmail, through which users chronicled their prison coupledom.

The content tagged with #prisonmail is not uniform. TikTok allows users to blend diverse media—text, audio, photography, and video—while equipping them with editing features. Taking advantage of the ability to combine multiple media that TikTok offers, content creators communicate and represent prison love stories in different ways. Some creators add voiceovers to their TikToks to narrate a specific moment of their lives, while others incorporate texts and music into their videos to express their emotions. Even the ways that content creators display letters in videos vary. While some opt for incorporating their voices while narrating the joy of sending, receiving, and archiving letters, others include additional texts on videos. Therefore, the material we analyze ranges from orally narrated videos with music in the background to written texts on the videos and comments from other users to which content creators replied. Given the variety of elements that make TikTok content, we conduct “multimodal content analysis” (Serafini and Reid, 2019), which factors in the changing ways content is presented on digital media based on the affordances offered by the latter. The content found on TikTok is multimodal, as users combine multiple forms of media, such as text, voice, music, still and moving images and visual effects while they also incorporate comments from other users in their posts. In the next analysis section, for each video, we indicate which mode(s) of communication the content creators resorted to in their postings. Despite our repeated attempts to contact the content creators through sending messages on TikTok and Instagram (DMs) and emails to conduct interviews, we failed to receive responses. Hence, we continued with content analysis of the videos and the interactions they stimulated.

We base our analysis on a data set of seventy-four TikToks by five prison partners who all dedicated their TikTok posting to sharing their relationship details with their followers. As we discuss below, while these women make other prison coupledom-related videos, their most repeated content are TikTok videos on their correspondence experience, posting at least 10 videos each on sending and receiving letters. These videos are made by four self-acclaimed prison wives and one prison girlfriend, stated either in their TikTok handles or on their TikTok bios. Two continue describing themselves as prison wives even though their husbands are released from prison. All the prison wives married while their partners served time in prison.

Scholars argue that algorithms create segregated visibility based on race (O’Neill, 2020). Therefore, rather than analyzing the top seventy videos #prisonmail gave us, we steered toward hand-picking content creators based on their posts focusing on prison-related content, the number of their followers and the intensity of their interaction with followers. While most prison partners do not self-identify racially they do not refrain from revealing their age. While scrolling down #prisonmail, we initially saw younger content creators (based on information on their profiles) and came across middle-aged creators only later. Among the TikTokers we analyze, two women are from the UK, one is from Australia and two are from the US. These prison partners have followers ranging from over 1500 to over 300,000. Their ages range from early-20s to mid-40s. Only one TikToker identifies as Latina; the others do not self-identify in terms of ethnicity or race. These five women heavily interact with their followers, which, shows their attempt to foster a community on and through TikTok.

In our analysis of videos gathered between August 2022 and April 2023 below, we focus on content that reflects our key themes and arguments most clearly. The larger sample of videos provided us with a deeper understanding of creators’ lives, relationship histories and their TikTok experiences and thereby allowed us to provide a more nuanced analysis. After determining recurring key themes thanks to the initial sampling of 74 videos, for in-depth analysis, we narrowed our focus to a smaller selection of representative videos. The representative videos were selected based on their display of recurring themes around prison correspondence, the depth of creator-follower interactions, and their demonstration of diverse multimodal content strategies. Videos analyzed below show similar patterns we found across all 74 videos, especially in how creators use TikTok’s features to share their prison relationship experiences.

Letter TikToks by prison partners

Numerous partners of incarcerated people (identifiable through self-proclaimed labels such as “prison wives” and “prison girlfriends” in their bios or handles) document their experiences and sentiments of being with a person in prison through TikTok videos. Their videos contain tips about preparing for a visit or the release date, they share their troubles, including the ongoing emotional distress of waiting for and being apart from their partners, being unable to communicate, and passing special dates such as Father’s Day or Christmas alone. These TikTok videos provide insight into the challenges of being with an incarcerated person, and intimate details of romantic relationships between people in prison and their partners. Shot in private settings such as cars or bedrooms, these TikToks render partners’ intimate spaces and emotions overtly public, seeking connection with their followers. These videos often elicit empathetic comments from viewers, sparking discussions about the challenges faced by incarcerated people and their loved ones, and offering emotional support. TikToks we discuss below do not guarantee a harassment-free digital space as some commenters reveal ongoing prejudice, but these TikToks also seem to connect like-minded prison communities in intimate conversations about their problems in a space beyond the limits of their social networks and contacts.

Among these videos those that show letters are the most common and the longest in duration. The partners shoot multiple letter TikToks showing themselves going through different emotions related to correspondence with their partners in prison. They express happiness when receiving and sending letters and, sadness when their correspondence is interrupted because of their partners’ punishment with solitary confinement. They also meticulously show each item sent and received, displaying their methods for storing letters. With tears in their eyes, prison partners film themselves reading aloud the heartfelt contents of these letters. These TikToks reveal pride in the length of letters exchanged, the words of love and commitment, and the attached art. The common themes that these letter Tiktoks show are: communication troubles and emotional perturbation of the couple, sentimental rewards of having an imprisoned partner, efforts to destigmatize themselves and their partner in prison, and the struggle to secure the image of devoted prison partners which then transfers to trustworthy influencers or business owners.

Communication troubles and emotional perturbation

TikTok videos tagged #prisonwife, #prisongirlfriend, #prisonmail hashtags offer a glimpse into the challenges of relationships with a person in prison. In these TikToks, women lament the lengthy and inadequate processes of prison communication, such as delays in correspondence and difficulties reaching their loved ones through phone calls or emails. Samantha is a self-proclaimed prison girlfriend from the UK. She met her boyfriend Mark, serving in a US prison, through writeapenpal.com website 3 years ago. Since their relationship started and continues with letters most of her TikTok profile is dedicated to their correspondence, filming and publicly sharing her happiness and excitement as soon as letters arrive. In a TikTok, Samantha bemoans the lack of communication expressing frustration by filming herself lying on the couch, covering her eyes with her hands to convey disappointment at Mark’s solitary confinement for 90 days. Unlike her usual style of speaking to the camera or adding voiceovers to narrate the situation, Samantha opts for silence. She adds text to the video to explain the situation, “When he is in the hole for 90 days with no calls and emails,” the text reads. Samantha’s followers show support in the comment section, “We just got done with this bullshit! I feel you!!” “Praying for you gurl. Them 90 days will fly by,” and “I did 60 days!! You got this girlx.”

TikToks of prison wives sharing videos about restrictions on communication rally support both from fellow prison partners and other followers. In a later video, Samantha tearfully shares the brief letter she received during her partner’s solitary confinement, voicing her relief, “I am so relieved to hear from him since he’s been sent to the hole.” She continues to show the letter from Mark in the video, saying, “They only give a shitty bendy pencil in the hole, and I was convinced I would have no letters for the time he is in there.” This short video is accompanied by texts incorporated by Samantha. These texts give additional information about her emotional state, explaining her happiness (“crying over a few lines, but it means the world”) and portraying her partner’s romanticism (“he wrote me a song on the other side”). Other prison partners who have faced similar experiences express their solidarity with their comments. While Susan celebrates the arrival of the letter (“I’m so happy for you, queen. You have such a pure soul”), two other prison partners, Liz and Kalima, share their own anxieties and experiences, “You’re strong! I’m so scared when mine goes to the hole. But I know it will happen sooner or later,” and “Oh babe I love this. Mines been in the hole for 3 months, 3 more left. I’va head one phone call all my letters have been rejected. Stay strong.” To another supportive comment, “You’ll get through this, queen! Stay strong! I’m here if you need to talk. You got this,” Samantha replies, “Girl, it’s so tough sometimes, isn’t it? We got this though. . . but sometimes we all need a big cry!” These dialogues establish a community around difficulties experienced by partners of incarcerated people. When they do not have the means to communicate with their imprisoned partner they do so with other partners beyond the walls.

At times, TikTok videos resemble diaries or vocal and written letters of complaint. Samantha’s followers also express empathy in response to a TikTok where she discusses the difficulties of maintaining a relationship with Mark. Samantha holds the phone and talks straight to the camera, using both verbal narration and on-screen text to convey the complexities of her situation. The on-screen text emphasizes Samantha’s struggle against marginalization, “Trying to keep it real and not just share the ‘rose-tinted’ loved up content, because sometimes this life is HARD, it’s hard when so many people are against us, and it’s a huge thing to move your entire life to a new continent on your own.” Samantha’s text provides the background of her situation while her voice gives an insight into a prison partner’s emotional state and daily struggle:

Today has been one of those days. This is all overwhelming sometimes. Usually I’m very happy, and everything’s great, and you know, try to look at the positive side of things. And then things keep going wrong, or hurdles keep appearing. And you just crack. I have probably cried a good seven times today. All I can describe is just feeling overwhelmed. I have got so much to do and to keep in place for us to be able to have our lives together by the time he is out. But realistically, it’s all on me. And that’s fine; it is literally what I signed up for, and I’ll get there. It’s just some days where it feels like mission impossible. It feels like I have a huge mountain in front of me. And I don’t even know where to start. I try to be a very strong person, but I am pretty sure that it is not just me that feels like this time. Today sucked I hope tomorrow is better.

The sentence before the last calls for support from people going through similar struggles. In response, two of Samantha’s followers, Jessica and Alicia, who also have incarcerated partners commented on this video. Jessica passionately expresses her anger at the stigma surrounding relationships with incarcerated individuals: “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. My family not approving is KILLING me, it’s bringing me down.” Jessica’s repetitive “yes”es indicate that she shares similar distress and loneliness, and displays exhaustion from stigmatization even by her own family. Alicia, on the other hand, agrees with the overwhelming responsibility that falls on the partners outside to maintain the relationship: “what we do is literally a full-time job with a bunch of overtime. It’s really not easy and I think we’ve all felt like this. Keep your chin up girl.” Other partners’ comments also highlight their lack of social and emotional support from their families and close social circles due to their choice of partner or even their decision to send letters to someone in prison.

Such exchanges between content creators and commentators are frequent in these TikTok videos which lead to socialization around common struggles. TikToker prison partners acknowledge their followers or community as part of their love story. Loss of communication rights, and the stigma of being with someone who is incarcerated are among the challenges that prison partners face. These TikTok videos incite empathetic comments and replies, and enable dialogues between prison communities who bond over shared troubles such as difficulties of communication and forced separation. They also provide learning opportunities for people to understand complex matters such as how partners maintain their relationships with their loved ones, how people end up in prison. and the emotional rewards of being with people in prison.

Depicting the sentimental rewards of #prisonlove

Prison partners explain their frustration about their relationships being dismissed as superficial because they are with people in prison and their connection is maintained through letters. To overturn this prejudice, their videos focus on the emotional rewards of being in such a relationship. Four of the five TikTok users describe their journey of initiating correspondence with a person in prison after experiencing disappointment in their attempts to forge emotionally fulfilling connections with someone “outside” via dating applications. They contrast this unfulfilling digitally mediated experience with the more “authentic” contact they establish with the former-penpal-turned-partner, starting from their first exchanged letter. Their love-at-first-correspondence-themed videos show how, even continentally apart, prison couples take advantage of letters’ intimacy to maintain relationships.

Erinda, a self-acclaimed prison girlfriend from Australia, uses TikTok handle “Erinda and Jack” and has a long-distance relationship with Jack, serving time in a US prison. One of her first posts on TikTok displays the packages she received from Jack while she talks about her struggles to have visiting rights approved by the prison authorities, providing insights into the bureaucratic steps required to visit a person in a US prison and the 2–6 months long wait for the background checks. The progression of Erinda’s TikToks reveals the evolution of their relationship with Jack and we see Erinda eventually visiting Jack in prison. These TikToks aim to show that the emotional rewards and strength of the relationship that outweigh the challenges.

In a TikTok shot in response to a follower’s request, Erinda details how they met with Jack through letter-writing. “His letter was amazing,” Erinda describes the spark behind her love story. Erinda mentions that the decision to write a letter to a person in prison was inspired by another TikTok user who recounted the experience of joining writeaprisoner.com. This user helped an imprisoned person by turning the latter’s art into stickers and selling them to help this incarcerated person earn money. Erinda explains that while having no expectations of romanticism, she was moved by Jack’s first letter, which was intensely emotional. Scrolling through Erinda’s later posts on TikTok shows how the first “amazing” letter received eventually morphed into a committed “prison love story” with Jack. TikToks that show the length and frequency of the letters received from prison document the depth of affection and commitment. A TikTok Erinda posts, shows the number of pages Jack wrote, proudly saying that she has a very long letter to respond to. The camera lens focuses on the quantity and length of the letter.

Consistent and prolonged correspondence reflects a deep commitment that demands effort from both individuals involved, which also becomes an argument against the instability of relationships with an imprisoned person. Laura often expresses the effort that letters require from both parties. Laura, a self-acclaimed prison wife, met Daniel through correspondence. In a bid to emphasize how letters constitute the narrative of a solid love story, Laura shares a video that displays the printing out of the family photos to be mailed to Daniel. The text Laura added to this video reads, “Mail is a big important part of our beautiful journey, sending the outside world through pictures, letting him know there’s so much to live for.” Laura also reads the lengthy and “very emotional love letters” received from Daniel frequently. One of Laura’s TikTok posts tagged with #prisonmail and #prisonlovestory displays six envelopes Daniel sent that week from prison. In this muted video, Laura’s mobile camera lingers on the letters, cards, and drawings sent by Daniel, as the video ends with a text that reads, “I have a lot to catch on.”

Laura takes pride in the enduring years of correspondence and showcases this longevity through TikToks that feature meticulously stored letters in multiple containers. In one video, Laura displays her storage units, which include drawers, folders, and a jewelry box decorated with a “prison wife” sticker. Laura explains that each five folder contains over 200 pages of letters. “It’s the small things that matter,” Laura remarks and continues, “This is how he spoils me, I rather receive a letter than a tablet,” emphasizing the non-material sentimental rewards of a relationship with a person in prison. Laura’s videos, featuring neatly organized stacks of prison letters which are also archives of their relationship, display how the couple goes steady and forward. These letters and archives are not only proof of a steady relationship but also that of loving, devoted and dependable people.

Destigmatizing incarcerated people and their partners

Prison letter TikToks encapsulate the ongoing efforts of prison wives and girlfriends to de-stigmatize themselves and their incarcerated partners. The videos shared by prison wives and girlfriends displaying letters from their incarcerated loved ones, not only enhance their own devoted image but also reveal the sentimental side of people in prison. To destigmatize their incarcerated partners, prison wives and girlfriends showcase their handcrafts, illustrations (like “I love you” notes, cartoons, tattoos, or hand traces), poems and songs.

In a video tagged #prisonmailfromhubby, Laura opens the envelope Daniel sent for Valentine’s Day. The video shows Laura taking out and running a hand over Daniel’s letter and drawings. This video brings about an outpouring of sympathy from Laura’s followers, including those whose loved ones also serve time in prison. Janine comments on the post with “(mailbox emoji) (letter emoji) is always a priceless treasure. Any month, any day all year round cuz these are unique & keepsakes 4 a Lifetime.” A similar comment from Melissa reads, “They always send beautiful drawings. I saved all my mail (heart emoji) the thoughtfulness and time and thought they spent on cards.” These comments garner sympathy for incarcerated partners by highlighting the time spent on crafting art for their loved ones, hinting at the therapeutic qualities of art practices in prison.

One of the challenges that women in prison relationships seem to face is the pressure to portray their partners as loving, thoughtful, and essentially “rehabilitated.” Through TikTok’s Q&A video format, in which users post a screenshot of a comment they receive from others while they film themselves answering that comment, Lena replies to followers’ questions, including, “What was his crime?” and “How do you know that he won’t go back to the life he lived once he is home?” To avoid missing out on important details, Lena inserts a written statement explaining why Ethan was convicted at the age of 18, “He was a kid that faced adversity in life and didn’t have the social capital and social network resources. He was exposed to a variety of factors that increased his likelihood to join a gang: lack of supervision, poverty and gang-affiliated family.” To convey confidence in Ethan’s rupture with his criminal past, Lena assures followers that he has wholly changed, “He is very honest and very true and he loves me very much. And I hope that my page has given you insight into how he is as a human being and how kind and loving he is and worthy of a second chance.”

These efforts to destigmatize their relationships by demonstrating incarcerated partners’ deep affection are not always met with sympathy. At times they expose the prejudices held by followers regarding relationships with incarcerated individuals. These prejudices include skepticism about the relationship’s credibility or future and the assumption that incarcerated people exploit their partners for financial gain. One of the TikTokers exposed to such comments is Serena, who met her incarcerated partner, Gerard, through letter exchanges in 2018. Serena’s videos also integrate TikTok’s Q&A format with humor to confront snide commentary about relationships with incarcerated individuals. In one of her videos, Serena took a screenshot of a comment that criticized her relationship for being based on letters and financial expectations and therefore assuming that it is superficial. The screenshotted comment was from someone she calls a “hater,” and it reads: “Well, I’m seeing a trend of girls writing to prisoners, which should not be normalized. Its not cute at all, and most of the time, these men are just trying to find ways to get out and have a good head start.” Serena responds sarcastically to criticism highlighting TikTok’s algorithm, which shows content based on users’ interests, and states, “Well I hate it to break it to you, but if that’s on your ‘For You’ page then that’s for you. You must be interested in writing inmates.” Serena concludes the video saying, “For the 100th time, I don’t take care of him. He takes care of me. Everything I’m surrounded by right now was purchased by my husband in prison,” expressing her annoyance at the stereotype that incarcerated individuals are solely interested in women outside for financial gain. Serena’s comeback, “for the 100th time,” reveals the frequency with which she encounters such biased remarks.

Serena addresses criticism about the longevity of her relationship by leveraging TikTok’s affordability that enables blending of different media formats. One of her TikTok starts with moving images of the prison walls, accompanied by a caption: “2018: ‘your relationship won’t last, he’s in prison.’” The video then transitions to a slideshow featuring letters and prison visit photographs documenting significant moments in their relationship from 2018 to the present year. The TikTok concludes with the statement “still together in 2024.” Standing strong and maintaining the relationship despite the prison walls and accusations of superficiality demonstrates Serena’s and other partners’ resilience.

For all five TikTokers who identify themselves as prison wives or girlfriends and who met their future husbands through letter exchanges, letters initiate emotions, and encapsulate devotion and consistency that goes against the assumed superficiality, exploitative nature, and instability of prison coupledom. They strive to undermine the assumed ephemerality and superficiality of social media and the suspected instability of prison relationships by repeated posts on the longevity of letter correspondence. This longevity also forges their self-representation as devoted, loving, loyal, and trustworthy women.

From devoted partners to trustworthy influencers or business owners

In some of these letter TikToks, wives and girlfriends of people in prison seek financial support along with emotional encouragement and social validation. They leverage their loyal and trustworthy image to conduct business on TikTok, selling handmade crafts either of their own or their partners’ or doing brand collaborations. Lena’s videos are accompanied by brand collaborations and product sales. In a TikTok featuring Ethan’s drawings, links are provided to websites that sell stickers of these drawings and Lena expresses their shared dream of opening a tattoo parlor after his release. Lena’s other monetized posts on TikTok weave together the self-branding ethos of social media and experiences of being a prison partner. Tagged as #prisonvisits, Lena’s posts appropriate vlog-posting practices such as the “get ready with me” format showing make-up, skincare, and outfit selection routine, sponsored by brands, before prison visit. Lena’s entrepreneurial pursuits on TikTok incorporate yet another common vlogging practice, the “spend a day with me” format, in which she films the various commercial spaces like coffee houses, fast-food chains, and department stores she drives to before visiting Ethan in prison.

In addition to promoting brands, monetized posts also document efforts to commercialize handcrafted items made by prison wives or incarcerated partners, such as jewelry and paper art. Serena frequently shares the beaded earrings Gerard made in prison with an affiliated link in the video. Serena’s efforts to generate income by selling jewelry that Gerard made reflect the commitment to support the incarcerated partner. This dedication is further recognized by one of Serena’s followers who comments, “Stand by your man,” “to which she responds with ‘I am’.”

Similarly, Laura promotes her own handmade jewelry in TikToks. Despite her husband’s release from prison, Laura continues to identify herself as a prison wife in her TikTok bio. Laura refers to this post-prison phase as a “new prison wife journey” and ensures to include #prisonwife in TikToks. There is a noticeable shift in the content Laura posts before and after Daniel’s release from prison. Previous videos highlight Laura’s commitment and loyalty by sharing letters and demonstrating dedication as a supportive partner. Later videos promote the small handmade jewelry business using #prisonwife, encouraging followers to support this post-prison business endeavor. Laura’s reputation as a reliable and sincere businessperson is rooted in the trustworthy persona cultivated as a prison wife on TikTok.

In sum, prison partners consolidate their and their imprisoned partner’s social value, which may translate into economic value, by proving their love and devotion for each other, evidenced by their correspondence. Visually displaying and aurally discussing prison letters, revealing the effort put into writing and collecting these markers of love and long-term bonding on TikToks, give prison partners and incarcerated people social validation. This validation and recognition of their social worth are evident, especially in the supportive comments these TikTok videos receive. Viewers of these videos acknowledge the challenges and hardships, while also celebrate the strength and sacrifices of these women. For some prison wives and girlfriends, the community support and the social value they receive from these videos translate into economic value since they rely on their loyal and trustworthy image to conduct business over TikTok, selling their or their partners’ handcrafts or conducting brand agreements.

Conclusion

Letters and TikTok videos complement each medium’s emotional complexity, affective impact and reach; the old media supports and furthers the new media’s registers of authenticity and intimacy. Traditional emotional immediacy of letters supports TikTok’s anonymous and non-social-networked intimacy. Prison letters as shown in TikTok videos, suggest sincerity, amplify the emotional impact and intensify connection with audience through the combination of the affective realms of old and new media, which then gets circulated through the act of sharing. Both people in prison and their partners appeal to letter and TikTok’s affordances and combine these affordances to amplify affect. The emotional impact of letters is also crucial for TikTok’s algorithmic visibility, contributing to a prison community’s efforts to be visible in their own means and terms.

In a research about mothers in prison Rosi Enroos underlines that, “in prison, the family is under the public gaze.” The couples have little control over this gaze which is tightly restricted by the institutional channels of communication. Letter TikToks overtake this gaze and redefine it through a platform that goes beyond institutional dictates. In letter TikToks, along with correspondence, we see screenshots of video calls, audio excerpts from phone calls, and photos sent from imprisoned partners. These videos, which make private communications public, are collages of visual, audio, and written media, aligning with TikTok’s affordances to mix different media. TikToks enhance the otherwise colorless, cold, and bureaucratic procedures of communicating with partners in prison by juxtaposing them with vibrant digital texts and images. Amidst scenes depicting money transfers, impersonal forms, and malfunctioning applications designed for contacting people in prison, prison wives, and girlfriends edit photos of loved ones, flashy postcards, and letters they send to their incarcerated partners. The letter exchanges, along with illustrations of rings and hand traces filmed with bright colors and sparkle filter effects on TikTok, contribute to the narrative of vibrant love stories that resist the bureaucratic coldness and difficulties of prison communication. Long, passionate and colorful letter correspondences, and archiving these letters virtually on TikTok, aims to go beyond cold, low-quality, black-and-white, and bureaucratic communication that prison administrations allow. Hence, these TikToks function as alternative archives that redesign the forced publicness of communication between prison partners through remediating letters in a medium that is not controlled by the penitentiary administration.

TikTok’s public displays of love and devotion both resist the penitentiary controls and prison administrations’ demands for official certificates of coupledom. It is true that they seek visibility and validation through a socially acceptable gendered identity; being the loving and devoted partner. Yet in their search for a socially acceptable identity, the comments by the audience of TikToks become crucial as part of the exchange between prison couples. TikTok videos and social mediatization of correspondence redesign the communication between couples by bring society into the interpersonal space of the relationship. While the affective impact of letters is amplified by migrating to social media, TikToks themselves become communal letters of complaint where partners of incarcerated people reveal and exchange their troubles. To compensate for the lack of support from their families and physical networks, they attempt to create a digital network with the hashtags #prisonwife and #prisongirlfriend. These hashtags, which they consistently use in their posts, highlight their desire to connect with a sympathetic community and seek support while also affirming their identities as prison partners.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Irem Şot

Ipek A Celik-Rappas

Notes

Author biographies

Irem Şot is a Lecturer in the Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koç University, Istanbul. Her research focuses on social media use and practices in Turkey. Her recent work on digital intimacies on TikTok was published in Media, Culture, and Society.

Ipek A Celik-Rappas is an Associate Professor of Media and Visual Arts at Koç University, Istanbul. She has published articles in Cinema Journal, Continuum, Television and New Media and Studies in European Cinema. Her current research explores art and media made by incarcerated people and prison communities.

References

Amaral

(2021) Conceptualising a TikTok project. In: TikTok Methodologies, TikTok Cultures Research Network, Virtual, July 19. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z0BAYi7mug (accessed 10 September 2021).

Bacchi

(2020) TikTok apologises for censoring LGBT+ content. Reuters, September 22. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/tiktok-apologises-for-censoring-lgbt-content-idUSL5N2GJ459/ (accessed 5 April 2024).

Bhandari

Bimo

(2022) Why’s everyone on TikTok now? The algorithmized self and the future of self-making on social media. Social Media + Society 8(1): 1–11.

Black

(2010) Doing gender from prison: Male inmates and their supportive wives and girlfriends. Race, Gender & Class 17(3/4): 255–271.

Borello

Fetherston

Tutrone

(2020) Prisoners are going viral on TikTok. Vice, 12 November. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9bzd/prison-inmates-are-going-viral-on-tiktok (accessed 10 January 2023).

Bourdon

(2019) The internet of letters: Comparing epistolary and digital audiences. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception studies 16(2): 350–373.

Bourdon

(2020) From correspondence to computers: A theory of mediated presence in history. Communication Theory 30(1): 64–83.

Braman

(2004) Doing Time on the Outside: Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America. University of Michigan Press.

Brink

(2003) You don’t see us doin’ time. Contemporary Justice Review 6(4): 393–396.

10.

Chedeville

(2021) I’m France’s biggest inmate TikToker. Vice, 19 August. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xgya/im-frances-biggest-inmate-tiktoker (accessed 10 February 2022).

11.

Chen

(2022) Why prisons are banning letters. The Nation, 9 February. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/prison-letters-mailguard (accessed 8 August 2022).

12.

Comfort

(2007) Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison. The University of Chicago Press.

13.

Corazza Padovani

(2014) Confounding borders and walls: Documents, letters and the governance of relationships in Sao Paolo and Barcelona prisons. Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology 10(2): 342–376.

14.

Duhaime-Ross

(2020a) Contraband cellphones have given us prison TikTok. Vox, 17 July. Available at: https://www.vox.com/2020/7/17/21327299/prison-tiktok-contraband-cellphone-incarceration (accessed 10 February 2022).

15.

Duhaime-Ross

(2020b) TikTok in prison (podcast) Recode Daily. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6t2R01QCiZwOxeCuBiUIix?go=1&sp_cid=9446957a0f4a54bdd4947bbc4a52f0b9&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop&nd=1 (accessed 8 August 2021).

16.

Enroos

(2011) Mothers in prison: Between the public institution and private family relations. Child & Family Social Work 16(1): 12–21.

17.

Fishman

(1984) Women at the wall: A study of prisoner’s wives doing time on the outside. PhD thesis, McGill University.

18.

Hartnett

Wood

McCann

(2011) Turning silence into speech and action: Prison activism and the pedagogy of empowered citizenship. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 8(4): 331–352.

19.

Hoffmann

Dickinson

Dunn

(2007) Communication policy changes in state adult correctional facilities from 1971 to 2005. Criminal Justice Review 32: 47–64.

20.

Hutton

Moran

(2019) The Palgrave Handbook of Prison and the Family. Palgrave Macmillan.

21.

Illouz

(2012) Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation. Polity.

22.

Jewkes

Reisdorf

(2016) A brave new world: The problems and opportunities presented by new media technologies in prisons. Criminology & Criminal Justice 16(5): 534–551.

23.

Kanthawala

Cotter

Foyle

, et al. (2022) It’s the methodology for me: A systematic review of early approaches to studying TikTok. In: Proceedings of the 55th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).

24.

Kohn

(2012) Crafting selves on death row. In: Davies

Park

(eds) Emotion, Identity, and Death: Mortality Across Disciplines. Ashgate, pp.71–83.

25.

Kotova

(2019) ‘Time . . . lost time’: Exploring how partners of long-term prisoners experience the temporal pains of imprisonment. Time & Society 28(2): 478–498.

26.

Kover

Reuter

(2019) TikTok curbed reach for people with disabilities. Netzpolitik.org, 2 December. Available at: https://netzpolitik.org/2019/discrimination-TikTok-curbed-reach-for-people-with-disabilities/ (accessed 5 April 2024).

27.

Lowenstein

(1984) Coping with stress: The case of prisoner’s wives. Journal of Marriage and Family 46(3): 699–708.

28.

Majia-O’Donnell

(2019) Exploring inmates prison pen-pal soliciting profiles on www.writeaprisoner.com. MS thesis, San Diego State University.

29.

Margolin

(2017) This activist writes letters to prisoners locked up for life on marijuana charges, 16 October. Available at: https://www.laweekly.com/this-activist-writes-letters-to-prisoners-locked-up-for-life-on-marijuana-charges/ (accessed 10 July 2024).

30.

Maybin

(1999) Death row penfriends: Some effects of letter writing on identity and relationships. In Barton

Hall

(eds) Letter Writing as a Social Practice. John Benjamins, pp. 151–178.

31.

Maybin

(2006) Death row penfriends: Configuring time, space, and selves. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 21(1): 58–69.

32.

Nickels

(2020) Love locked up: An exploration of relationship maintenance and perceived barriers for women who have incarcerated partners. Journal of Family Communication 20(1): 36–50.

33.

O’Neill

(2020) Pursuing “wellness”: Considerations for media studies. Television & New Media 21(6): 628–634.

34.

Opsal

(2011) Women disrupting a marginalized identity: Subverting the parolee identity through narrative. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 40(2): 135–167.

35.

PCARE (2007) Fighting the prison–industrial complex: A call to communication and cultural studies scholars to change the world. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4(4): 402–420.

36.

Perkins

Rand

Sheaffer

(2018) Social media usage and incarcerated women: A pilot study. The Prison Journal 98(1): 3–16.

37.

Poor

Woods

Williams

(2019) Respect the paper (podcast). Ear Hustle. Available at: https://www.earhustlesq.com/episodes/2019/6/20/respect-the-paper (accessed 8 August 2022).

38.

Reid

Niebuhr

(2022) “Prison TikTok”: Incarcerated life shared on social media. CrimRxiv, February 7. Available at: https://www.crimrxiv.com/pub/dn7mc7qp/release/1 (accessed 2 March 2023).

39.

Schlosser

Feldman

(2022) Doing time online: Prison TikTok as social reclamation. Incarceration 3(2): 1–17.

40.

Serafini

Reid

(2019) Multimodal content analysis: Expanding analytical approaches to content analysis. Visual Communication 22(4): 623–649.

41.

Şot

(2022) Fostering intimacy on TikTok: A platform that ‘listens’ and ‘creates a safe space.’ Media, Culture & Society 44(8): 1–18.

42.

Statista (2024) Average TikTok video length from March 2023 to August 2023, by number of video views. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1372569/tiktok-video-duration-by-number-of-views (accessed 10 July 2024).

43.

Taulli

(2020) TikTok: Why the enormous success? Forbes, January 31. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2020/01/31/tiktok-why-the-enormous-success/ (accessed 5 April 2024).

44.

Tewksbury

(2005) Personal ads from prisoners: Do the inmates tell the truth about themselves. Federal Probation 69(2): 32–34.

45.

Weichselbaum

(2015) Prison personals: How prison pen pal services became the new OkCupid, December 2. Available at: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/12/prison-personals (accessed 16 July 2024).