Video Vigilantes: The Digital Fight for Vengeance Against Perpetrators on TikTok

Abstract

This study examines digital vigilantism videos on TikTok and their role in highlighting systemic barriers to traditional justice. Through textual analysis of 50 TikTok “vigilante videos” and the 244,600 comments supporting them, this research explores how women employ weaponized exposure to pursue informal justice across a spectrum of experienced harms. While prevailing scholarship highlights the risks of digital vigilantism, this project provides a critical feminist perspective, emphasizing the tension between carceral and anticarceral approaches to justice. Findings reveal “vigilante videos” serve three key functions: (1) facilitating retributive action against perpetrators, (2) transforming victims’ shame into collective empowerment, and (3) creating protective networks safeguarding potential future victims. By engaging with these videos, TikTok users foster a sense of crowd-sourced justice, amplifying the voices of women who have been failed by traditional legal avenues. These digital practices reflect a broader critique of the carceral state and demonstrate how women navigate justice outside of formal systems. This research contributes to scholarship on TikTok, cultural criminology activism, and anitcarceral feminism.

Introduction

A woman sharpens her knife, smiling directly at the camera. She casually asks, “Did I ever tell you about that influencer that took advantage of me and schmexummually schmassaulted me?” TikTok users often alter terms they believe will be flagged for removal by the platform’s algorithm. In this case, the woman is referencing sexual assault. At the time of this study, this was one of the most popular vigilante videos on TikTok, with more than 28.5 million views. One user commented on the video, “The knife sharpening is lowkey iconic.” That comment received 74,000 “likes” and 46 “replies” that echoed the sentiment.

Such vigilante videos signify a new social norm developing on social media, through which women are publicly announcing the many types of harm they have endured and the identities of those responsible. These acts of “Feminist Digilantism” (Jane, 2016) involve the “naming and shaming” (Crawford & Gillespie, 2016) of perpetrators. In contrast to earlier hashtag movements like #MeToo, which primarily fostered solidarity against sexual harassment and violence, TikTok vigilante videos address a broader spectrum of harms, including mental and financial abuse. They also involve hyper disclosure of personal information and active retaliation against perpetrators. This study analyzes these videos and comments to understand how women are leveraging TikTok to pursue individual and collective justice.

Limitations of the U.S. criminal justice system leave significant gaps often filled by frustrated citizens, who sometimes feel they must seek justice for their individual cases through informal mechanisms. Formal justice processes can be inefficient (Daly, 2017; Herman, 2005), leaving survivors of crime to alternative forms of justice through digital platforms (Fileborn, 2014; Salter, 2013). These online spaces not only serve as avenues for activism against issues such as gender-based violence (Fileborn, 2014; Powell, 2015; Salter, 2013) but also provide opportunities for crime survivors to reclaim agency in ways that conventional justice systems often fail to provide. Social media affordances allow survivors to establish community and seek informal justice outside of the state, challenging dominant narratives about how justice can and should be achieved (Powell, 2015).

The following sections set the scene for what digital vigilante justice is, the academic conversations surrounding it, how it functions outside of the legal system, and why modern women may be drawn to enacting it through TikTok videos. Focusing on the actions of TikTok creators and their followers, this project uses both a feminist and a cultural criminologist lens to illustrate how social understandings of crime and punishment are shifting thanks to technological affordances, guided by two key questions: (1) What functions do vigilante videos serve for women seeking justice on TikTok? (2) How do Video Vigilantes challenge, reinforce, or reshape social expectations surrounding carceral justice? Results show a powerful individualized social movement, which is discussed through the understanding of cultural criminology activism and anticarceral feminism. Implications include highlighting how individuals strategically leverage digital platforms for alternative justice, emphasizing the transformative potential of survivor-led online activism, and emphasizing critical gaps within traditional institutional responses to gendered harm.

Literature Review

Vigilante Justice

Vigilantism occurs when citizens act outside the legal system to prevent, investigate, and punish crime (Bateson, 2021). The first vigilante movement in the United States dates back to 1767, as early European settlers took the law into their own hands to “regulate” the area now known as South Carolina (Brown, 1969). Historian Richard Brown (1969) argues the American vigilante tradition never fully ended, instead adapting through the centuries with the cultural belief that where there is lawlessness and disorder, citizens should step up to see justice done.

Digital Vigilantism

Vigilantism has evolved alongside the modern world, now taking place online through “digital vigilantism,” or “digilantism,” which is the online process of tracking down individuals and disclosing their information to the public (Smallridge et al., 2016). The weapon of choice for this type of digital fight is a term called the “Weaponisation of Visibility” (Trottier, 2017) where the distribution of personal information can become an “explicit strategy of individuals who know very well that mediated visibility can be a weapon in the struggles they wage in their day-to-day lives” (Thompson, 2005, p. 31). Digilantism relies on this type of visibility for social pressure to create change. By exposing harmful individuals to the internet, they can be held accountable by the court of public opinion, which may cause ripple effects within their real lives such as losing employment or interpersonal relationships. Yet this weapon can be double-edged. While women leverage visibility for feminist critique, the same affordances are mobilized to silence them, from doxxing campaigns against feminist activists to blatant misogynistic harassment (Jane, 2016). This tension highlights the ambivalence of digital platforms, where feminist digital vigilantism circulates alongside, and sometimes within, a broader ecosystem increasingly dominated by right-wing, conservative, and misogynist forces (Banet-Weiser, 2018).

Loveluck (2020) created a comprehensive typology of digital vigilantism, aiming to reconcile various practices under four main categories: (1) Flagging: reporting content to platform authorities (often leading to content removal or account suspension), (2) Investigating: analyzing information and sharing findings publicly, (3) Hounding: harassment or aggressive actions directed at a target, and (4) Organized Leaking: deliberate dissemination of private information to expose perceived misconduct. Under this typology, Video Vigilantes fall under the “Investigating” category, with occasional instances of “Organized Leaking,” as they involve collecting, narrating, and distributing accusations and evidence through a highly visible platform.

TikTok Affordances

TikTok digilantism cannot be understood without considering the technological and social “affordances,” or possibilities provided by a platform, shaped by both design and users’ intent (Bucher & Helmond, 2018). TikTok’s algorithm-driven For You Page (FYP) maximizes exposure for emotionally resonant or controversial content, allowing vigilante videos to circulate rapidly across audiences who did not seek them out. The form of TikTok content (short, visual, emotionally engaging, and often accompanied by viral audio) amplifies the platform’s potential for justice-oriented storytelling (Schellewald, 2021). TikTok’s cultural norms also incentivize vulnerability and personal storytelling, creating a space where users feel encouraged to disclose painful experiences in stylized and performative ways (Slater, 2022). These videos are not merely cathartic expressions; they are intentional communicative acts designed to invite interaction, validation, and circulation.

While TikTok affords users the ability to circulate feminist digital vigilantism, the application is designed within a male-dominated tech industry and optimized to profit from virality (Nieborg & Poell, 2018; Wajcman, 2004; Zeng & Kaye, 2022). Platforms commodify visibility and engagement, meaning that the traction vigilante videos gain is not simply organic, but also an outcome of an algorithm structured to reward polarizing, sensational, or scandalous content that sustains user attention (Nieborg & Poell, 2018).

Audience Response

Digital community participation is often criticized as slacktivism, referring to low-effort actions, such as likes or shares, that signal solidarity without engaging in more sustained activism (Żuchowska-Skiba, 2024). Yet low-barrier digital participation can provide entry points into political discourse, amplify marginalized voices, and build collective consciousness around issues of harm and justice (Mendes et al., 2018). The accumulation of seemingly minor actions, such as commenting, can help shape public narratives about what counts as justice and who deserves it. The audience becomes a participant in the justice process, affirming the video poster’s experience and contributing to the reputational consequences faced by the accused. This type of engagement creates a participatory moral economy in which attention becomes both currency and censure (Cammaerts, 2022). Within this dynamic, visibility is not neutral or incidental but serves as a mechanism for assigning value, enacting judgment, and signaling moral alignment. Interactions on social platforms are governed by affective and moral logics, operating as symbolic endorsements of justice or condemnation of harm (Highfield, 2016; Papacharissi, 2015). Participation in these digital rituals establishes and reinforces communal standards of right and wrong, elevating certain voices while delegitimizing others. This economy is shaped by “reputational labor,” where social media users collectively monitor, evaluate, and respond to others’ behavior in ways that carry reputational consequences (Marwick & Boyd, 2014). These practices echo historical forms of public shaming and moral sanction, now reconfigured through algorithmic infrastructures that reward affectively charged content (Crawford & Gillespie, 2016; Trottier, 2017). As a result, attention functions simultaneously as a reward for perceived truth-telling and a punishment for those deemed harmful, rendering digital visibility a form of moral governance in itself.

Academic Response

The academic response to online justice-seeking efforts is often cautious, rightfully pointing to real-life consequences for virtual actions (Costello & Loosemore, 2017). There is significant pushback against “cancel culture” and the “woke mob” with the idea that social media users attack others online without proof of harm, ruining the lives of innocent people (Cammaerts, 2022). While examples are plentiful, many have focused on two main digital vigilante groups thus far: (1) those attacking strangers over inconsequential events like not picking up dog poop (Trottier, 2017), and (2) those sharing misinformation and attacking the wrong suspect (Nhan et al., 2017). Although these situations are harmful, they represent a small piece of the digital vigilante culture that is continuing to evolve alongside the fast-paced development of technology.

Legal Response

Despite the popularity of digital exposure, legal experts warn of the messy and drawn-out court cases that may ensue when citizens name names on the internet, such as disrupting ongoing police investigations and damaging future trials (Davis, 2019). Scholars are concerned where the “disdain for due process” (J. Martin, 2009, p. 147) and “low confidence in the police” (Haas et al., 2014) may lead, including furthering harm to victims. Despite potential consequences, many women are still turning to TikTok to seek justice, indicating significant issues with the public’s access to and willingness to participate in the U.S. legal system and the severe drawbacks women face when they do pursue justice through formal mechanisms (Yalcinoz-Ucan & Eslen-Ziya, 2024).

Digital Justice

In the absence of effective institutional responses, digital platforms have emerged as critical spaces where individuals can share their truths, reclaim their narratives, and mobilize collective support, as “victims need an opportunity to tell their stories in their own way, in a setting of their choice” (Herman, 2005, p. 574). Posting their stories online allows victims to bypass traditional gatekeepers of justice, such as law enforcement and the courts, directly engaging with wider audiences. TikTok has become a platform where marginalized women document harm, seek solidarity, and call for accountability by leveraging platform-specific formats like storytime videos, stitched responses, and viral trends (Abidin, 2021; Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik, 2022). This “online disclosure” (Yalcinoz-Ucan & Eslen-Ziya, 2024) provides a mechanism for victims to achieve recognition and community support in ways that formal systems often cannot.

Digital Confessionals

Such disclosures can function as public confessions, where survivors of harm tell their stories in formats that resemble testimonial media, allowing victims to reclaim narrative agency and resist the silencing norms that surround gendered violence (Serisier, 2018). This validates speakers’ experiences and invites others to bear witness, a dynamic that transforms individual trauma into collective testimony in “networked solidarity” (Yalcinoz-Ucan & Eslen-Ziya, 2024) where public confessions expose perpetrators and build communities of support among other survivors who see themselves reflected in the narrative. These videos function as hybrid texts: part public awareness, part personal reckoning, and part mobilization of collective moral sentiment.

Online Punishment

The online exposure of perpetrators illustrates how mediated visibility becomes a form of informal punishment (Trottier, 2017), subjecting individuals to large-scale scrutiny without institutional due process, producing consequences that may be reputational, emotional, or economic (Thompson, 2005). This can backfire on those seeking justice, as campaigns of exposure are frequently reframed by critics as excessive or hysterical attacks, especially when they emerge from feminist spaces (Cammaerts, 2022). Banet-Weiser (2018) argues that contemporary digital feminism often exists within a visibility economy where feminist messages are commodified and circulated alongside, and in tension with, misogynistic narratives. The rise of cancel culture has complicated this dynamic, with “call-out” and “canceling” practices viewed as either necessary correctives or dangerous forms of mob justice (Ng, 2022). Feminist digilantism, a term used to describe naming-and-shaming practices targeting misogyny and abuse, reflects the gendered dimensions of this work (Jane, 2016). These practices are rooted in protection and visibility, even as they risk backlash.

Theoretical Framework

The feminist digilantism examined in this study operates within these conflicting discourses. To explore this increasingly popular and multifaceted emerging social norm, this project uses a unique theoretical scaffold built upon anticarceral feminism and cultural criminology activism. Together, these conceptual frameworks operate in tandem to analyze the functions of vigilante videos on TikTok and how they facilitate new social understandings of crime, punishment, and harm against women.

Anticarceral Feminism

The strategies used in vigilante videos reflect a broader feminist debate over whether to work within or against the carceral state. “Carceral feminism” emphasizes the use of law enforcement and incarceration to address gendered violence, relying on the state as a legitimate enforcer of justice (Bernstein, 2012). This framework has been increasingly critiqued for overlooking how state systems perpetrate harm, especially against women of color and queer individuals (Goodmark, 2018; Kim, 2018). “Anticarceral feminism,” on the other hand, advocates for transformative approaches to justice that are survivor-centered, non-punitive, and community-driven (O’Brien et al., 2020). The goal is to seek acknowledgment, prevent future harm, and regain control over narratives. Intersectional scholars have emphasized how race, class, and citizenship status shape the likelihood of receiving justice or even being recognized as a legitimate victim (Crenshaw, 1991; Nigam, 2014). Given these structural realities, the choice to seek justice through public disclosure can be seen as both a critique of formal institutions and an act of agency. By controlling the narrative and shaping the conditions of visibility, women might reclaim a sense of power that is often denied to them by state systems.

Cultural Criminology Activism

The field of cultural criminology pairs well with anticarceral feminism, offering a theoretical lens to understand how meanings of crime and justice are constructed through cultural narratives. Crime is not a fixed category, but a contested and fluctuating label shaped by social norms and power relations (Ferrell, 2013). Through this lens, vigilante videos are cultural artifacts that participate in ongoing negotiations over what counts as wrongdoing and how it should be addressed (Ilan, 2019). These digital texts reflect Cultural Criminology Activism (G. Martin, 2023), where individuals use media platforms to challenge dominant definitions of crime and assert alternative forms of justice. These acts of storytelling and exposure reframe justice as a participatory process rather than an institutional outcome.

This aligns with broader calls in criminology to recognize informal justice-seeking practices that arise in digital environments. Powell, Overington, and Hamilton (2018) argue that survivors increasingly turn to online platforms not just to report harm, but to contest erasure and seek public validation. Such actions form “digital counter-publics” (Fileborn, 2014; Salter, 2013) as alternative spheres of discourse where marginalized voices construct their own definitions of harm and accountability. More specifically, “technosocial counter-publics” (Powell, 2015) describe spaces where technology and social interaction merge to create forums for survivor advocacy. These informal networks are not without risk, but they also offer opportunities for solidarity, visibility, and resistance. The videos in this study operate in this spirit, challenging institutional silences and offering a model of justice rooted in community and storytelling.

Methodology

In a preliminary investigation, 300 English-speaking TikTok videos were analyzed to identify themes within the vigilante trend. While men and gender non-conforming individuals also occasionally exposed perpetrators, the majority of the videos were posted by those identifying as women. For the sake of design simplicity and data accuracy, women were quickly identified as the target study demographic.

Vigilante videos differ from the #MeToo movement in that the harms women are exposing in their TikTok videos included many categories other than just sexual or physical. The scope of this study was expanded to fit any type of harm the video poster considered worthy of exposing, including topics such as covert abuse and manipulation. Although the final selection of videos was intentionally broad to capture each facet of a growing trend, each video was required to meet the following qualifications that emerged as clear indicators of the Video Vigilante movement: (1) the identity of the alleged perpetrator is revealed within the video or is easily identifiable within the video or just a few clicks in the comment section or search bar feature on TikTok, (2) the video must explicitly state through text or spoken word that intentional harm was caused (i.e. harm was not caused on accident, such as a car crash), and (3) the video must contain images, music, sound, text, and/or nonverbal communication that states or implies the poster is seeking justice against their perpetrator. Many other factors appeared in vigilante videos, but these three criteria were ubiquitous across the hundreds of videos examined to narrow down the research scope.

The Collection of Data

Preliminary searches in the TikTok application included the terms #justice, #vigilante, and #survivor. Upon initial inquiry, clicking on one vigilante video led to the TikTok algorithm providing more. By the time a few videos were viewed and their comment sections analyzed, the research account was already on “Vigilante Tok,” which consists of anyone who receives vigilante videos presumably pushed onto their FYP by the algorithm. The final sample was selected to cover a large spectrum of perceived race, age, and sexuality in consideration of both the video poster and their identified perpetrator. To reflect the nature of this trend, videos were selected to include a wide range of topics for which posters were seeking justice, including matters such as sexual assault, physical violence, verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, reputational damage, fraud, and murder. Once the videos no longer introduced new information about the trend, the data was considered sufficient, which resulted in a total of 50 videos. Each unique video received between 11 and 54,700 comments. They ranged from 15 seconds to 10 minutes in length and were posted between 2021 and 2024. In total, these 50 videos received 18,483,236 “likes,” 844,596 “saves,” 339,684 “shares,” and 244,600 comments.

Textual Analysis

This study approached videos not as mere reflections of behavior but as performative acts that encode meaning, ideologies, and emotion (Hawkins, 2017). Vigilante videos are communicative artifacts, crafted and shared with deliberate messaging. To investigate both the videos and their corresponding comment sections, textual analysis was used to decipher how individuals shared their experiences (Hawkins, 2017). Approaching user-generated content through textual analysis also reduces ethical risks associated with re-traumatization of survivors of harm. This works well within the cultural criminologist activism framework that views meaning as actively co-produced through platform affordances, social norms, and audience interaction. In short, this study analyzes how public perpetrator callouts are performed, framed, and interpreted within a specific digital context. This allows for a broader, ethically sound exploration of emerging justice-seeking behaviors online, while remaining attentive to the cultural meanings encoded in visual and textual digital media. Adhering to a contextualist approach (Schellewald, 2021), the analysis focused on broader trends concerning video posters and their comment sections within the larger vigilante movement, rather than concentrating solely on individual video content. The following overarching questions guided this project:

• Research Question 1: What motivations drive women to seek justice through vigilante videos on TikTok?

• Research Question 2: How do Video Vigilantes challenge, reinforce, or reshape social expectations surrounding carceral justice?

Ethical Considerations

This study received an IRB exemption from the University of Iowa due to its exclusive use of publicly available content. Nonetheless, the ethical complexity of studying vulnerable populations in digital spaces demands critical engagement beyond procedural compliance. Although the TikTok videos were publicly posted, many involved sensitive disclosures related to trauma, abuse, or criminal accusations. Simply citing “public availability” is insufficient to resolve the potential harms of further exposure, misinterpretation, or unintended amplification (Franzke et al., 2020). As such, content was observed with a “non-participant” approach without interacting, commenting, or engaging with users in any way (Brennen, 2021). Creators were not contacted, and no personal identifiers (including usernames) were included in this study. To further minimize the potential for harm, videos and comments were paraphrased in ways that preserved meaning but reduced searchability, aligning with “fabrication as ethical practice” (Markham, 2012), which argues that altering data to protect participant identities is both methodologically sound and ethically necessary.

Findings and Discussion

Vigilante videos were produced in a myriad of manners. Some women followed TikTok trends with popular songs or lip-synching. Others told their story directly to the camera. Many showed the harm they endured through a slideshow of pictures, screenshots of text messages, or security footage. While the manner of delivery varied greatly, they each sought vigilante justice through the clear exposure of their perpetrator to the public. The following section presents the findings of the study alongside theoretical analysis and discussion. Each theme reflects a different dimension of how Video Vigilantes and their comment sections conceptualize justice, operating in a space where formal legal systems are considered insufficient. The emergent themes are not mutually exclusive but interwoven, reflecting the fluid and multifaceted nature of informal justice-seeking in digital contexts.

The Three Main Functions of Vigilante Videos

Findings revealed that vigilante videos served three main functions for women seeking justice on TikTok: (1) retribution against the people who caused them harm by exposing that harm to the public, (2) resolution of the shame connected to their trauma, and (3) protection of other potential victims by creating a type of “mug shot” of their perpetrator for the public to be on the lookout for. In the following section, there are examples that encapsulate each theme within the trend, along with several comments from the comment sections to indicate the larger reception and response within the movement. Any numbers included in the analysis are intended to represent the breadth of impact that individual videos have, as well as contextualize the importance of audience interaction as a significant role within the trend.

Retribution

The data established a prominent pattern of women seeking retribution against the people who caused them harm. With nearly 2 million views, one video contained the text “I ruined his life for revenge.” The Vigilante verbally shared how she sought retribution by sending security footage of her assault to every potential employer within the city where her perpetrator lived. At the time of this project, the video received more than 250,000 likes and 3,500 comments. The top comments were statements along the lines of:

“This is an appropriate response queen” (30,400 likes).

“This is a woman’s rage. We will never let you forget” (24,300 likes).

“i LOVE vengeful spiteful women” (30,700 likes).

Ardent support was ubiquitous across all 50 videos. The audience reinforced the quest for retribution, often wanting to aid in the process. Although some comments expressed a desire for the perpetrator to face consequences, they did not contain violent rhetoric. Rather than attacking the perpetrator directly, Vigilantes used the weaponisation of visibility (Trottier, 2017) to hurt the perpetrators’ reputation by exposing the truth. Many comments articulated the idea that by merely interacting with a vigilante video, the audience amplified the video’s reach by increasing the number of times the TikTok algorithm placed that video on more users’ FYP. Visibility was weaponized to create negative publicity for private individuals with the explicitly stated intention of the video reaching the perpetrators’ real-life communities to expose the harm they had done, often with the hope that it might create social pressure for the perpetrators offline as a form of punishment.

Platform affordances amplify this effect by providing algorithmic distribution that enables emotional narratives to circulate widely, gaining visibility and power through engagement metrics (Bucher & Helmond, 2018). Commenters on these videos frequently reference the algorithm explicitly, with phrases like “Boosting for the algorithm” or “Let’s get this on everyone’s FYP,” signaling collective involvement in the dissemination of justice. Retributive action here is framed as a rational response to institutional inaction, where symbolic exposure offers a form of accountability. These practices resemble what Bell (2022) describes as penal populism from below; where ordinary citizens assert their right to define justice and enact consequences through digital means. The digital landscape, especially when mobilized by anticarceral feminist actors, allows for a crowd-sourced retributive justice that is rooted in collective morality rather than institutional codes of conduct. This symbolic punishment constitutes a form of cultural sanctioning that operates through public storytelling, audience affirmation, and algorithmic visibility (Powell, Stratton, et al., 2018). In such contexts, TikTok becomes a site of emotional redress where justice is not delivered by the state but enacted by the public, whose collective endorsement transforms individual suffering into a communal cry for justice.

Resolution

Across each of the 50 videos was an expressed sense of relief and connection to others through seeking resolution. There was a clearly communicated sense of personal catharsis for video posters, which took place by revealing a secret that others did not want publicly known and releasing the stigmatizing shame connected to their trauma. With more than 6 million views, one Video Vigilante said, “Now that I finally got home from therapy I can talk about this.” Text across the bottom of the video read along the lines of, “She committed CSA [Child Sexual Assault] against me.” The video shows the vigilante’s mom giving a speech while she rubs the vigilante’s shoulders. With nearly 600,000 likes and 37,000 saves, the comment section was full of thousands of women sharing the stories of childhood sexual assault they experienced at the hands of family members, hatting back and forth on the public platform to acknowledge each other’s pain. “She should be ashamed. NOT YOU. You’re not alone . . . a lot of us have moms like this” (27,400 likes).

Survivors often use digital platforms not only to describe their experiences, reclaim control over their stories, and challenge the invisibility historically imposed upon them by state systems and dominant narratives (Dragiewicz et al., 2018). These actions may serve the therapeutic function of retelling trauma in a self-determined way (Van der Kolk, 2014) while activating a public that is both audience and co-witness. Vigilantes and those who viewed their videos sought the resolution of trauma through the means of community-centered social support, reflecting “narrative agency” (Serisier, 2018) in which feminist storytelling becomes a political act that disrupts dominant silences around gendered violence. These confessional videos also serve as cultural performances designed to solicit empathy, transforming private pain into collective discourse through “networked solidarity” (Yalcinoz-Ucan & Eslen-Ziya, 2024), where digital testimonies foster mutual recognition and create affective bonds among users.

Commenters frequently validated the speaker’s experience and contributed their own stories of harm with statements like, “I’ve never told anyone about the financial abuse because it’s embarrassing but your video gave me courage,” and “no one ever talks about the mental shit but it’s worse than physical.” Public disclosures catalyze parallel confessions and build emotional communities. Digital confessional practices foster “networked intimacy,” (De Ridder & Van Bauwel, 2015), or affective ties between strangers through shared vulnerability. The comment sections on these videos become participatory spaces for emotional resonance and testimonial witnessing, echoing Papacharissi’s (2015) theorization of affective publics, which are communities bound not by identity but by feeling. TikTok users engage in the politics of voice (Couldry, 2010), where media becomes a space for those traditionally excluded from institutional recognition to assert personal and political presence. These performances reflect individual pain and invite co-authorship from audiences, who validate and amplify the storyteller’s account. In this way, vigilante videos are sites of emotional justice, where recognition and affirmation are offered by the crowd rather than the court. Through these digital encounters, informal justice emerges as the cumulative process of being heard and believed in public.

Protection

Vigilantes consistently expressed their desire to protect other women from their perpetrators. One vigilante had a black eye and tears running down her face as she told the story of taking her children and leaving her abusive husband.

I don’t want this to happen to somebody else. If I can help someone get out of this situation early, to recognize warning signs, to just leave, then my story’s worth telling. Which sucks, because I don’t want to. It’s very scary to tell it but it can happen to anybody (26,900 likes).

Videos like this one often contained the pictures and locations of perpetrators, warning other women away from pursuing a romantic relationship with the same abusive individual. Commenters sometimes confirmed they had seen the perpetrator on a dating application and thanked the Vigilante for the warning. Many commenters stated their location to let the Vigilante know how far their information had reached. The comment sections often looked like this:

“You reached Milwaukee!”

“Reached Chi northern burbs. So incredibly sorry for your tragic loss”

“How do I live so close to you, but never heard this story? Keep getting the word out. I’ll be sharing this with others!”

TikTok’s affordances support these practices by enabling creators to tag locations and leverage hashtags, establishing a networked system of digital care. TikTok becomes a tool of protection, allowing users to participate in community-driven mechanisms aimed at prevention and collective safety. This aligns with previous research indicating that a key motivation for survivors seeking justice, whether through formal or informal means, is to prevent further harm by the perpetrators (Fileborn, 2014, 2017; Salter, 2013; Yalcinoz-Ucan & Eslen-Ziya, 2024). When institutions fail to protect, communities create grassroots interventions rooted in care and solidarity (Fileborn, 2014). These online communities reflect cultural criminology activism with a shift away from punitive frameworks and toward harm reduction that prioritizes survivor needs.

In many of the videos, creators used phrases like “I’m sharing this so he can’t do it to anyone else,” framing the speaker as a civic actor, morally obligated to share their story for the safety of others. The visibility of these narratives documents trauma while deterring future abuse. In this context, TikTok operates as a space of “participatory surveillance,” (Andrejevic, 2005) where the crowd not only consumes but circulates and reinforces moral judgments. Rather than replicating traditional top-down surveillance logics associated with state institutions, this reflects a form of surveillance rooted in care and mutual responsibility (Albrechtslund, 2008). This positions digital storytelling as a practice of ethical witnessing (Markham, 2012), where creators call upon others to act not just as passive spectators but as active participants in a network. In this way, vigilante videos transcend individual exposure and becomes a form of communal safeguarding, wherein participation in visibility is framed as a politically resonant act.

Social Expectations Surrounding Carceral Justice

A major underlying tension surfaced in each vigilante video, involving the complex and often contradictory relationship between vigilante storytellers and the formal justice system. This likely stems from the uneven and often exclusionary nature of state-sanctioned justice, which has historically marginalized the voices and experiences of women, people of color, and other vulnerable communities (Goodmark, 2018; Richie, 2012). While some vigilantes expressed satisfaction when their cases were acknowledged by police or courts, others explicitly rejected institutional pathways due to past experiences of being ignored, doubted, or retraumatized.

One clear example of this came from a woman who knew her TikTok would likely be removed from the platform, so she sent the video to her perpetrator’s mom.

Like most survivors, I knew that was the only form of justice I was going to receive, and I was happy with that. I didn’t need an apology from him. I didn’t need him to acknowledge what he did to me. I got to say what I wanted to say, and I knew that he had seen it and heard me. So imagine my surprise when a few months later this lovely legal document was served to me (579,400 likes).

The perpetrator had retained a lawyer and threatened to sue the Video Vigilante. Despite the risk of speaking out, she continued to post her story through a video series about the subsequent legal fallout. More concerned with shifting the larger cultural conversation than avoiding a personal lawsuit, this vigilante, and many like her, sought the entire reformation of the entire justice system. Vigilantes often explicitly state willingness to take personal legal repercussions to call attention to systemic justice issues. These findings highlight that, for survivors, the pursuit of justice extends beyond personal needs (Fileborn, 2017; McGlynn & Westmarland, 2019). Online disclosures serve as a means of raising awareness, empowering communities, and fostering societal change toward a future free from violence (Fileborn, 2014, 2017; Mendes et al., 2018). This perspective also aligns with social justice frameworks emphasizing broader efforts in systemic transformation to cultivate equitable and just societies (McGlynn & Westmarland, 2019).

Many women in the dataset often referenced failed attempts to seek justice through police or courts, noting disbelief, mishandling of evidence, or outright dismissal through comments like, “The real shame is that the judges that allow this abuse to happen in court and the attorneys that agree to it.” This erosion of institutional trust contributes to the popularity and perceived necessity of public storytelling on TikTok. “Why is sexual assault not considered a violent crime in the eyes of the court?” Such public discourse challenges dominant norms around who gets to define harm and how accountability is pursued. In traditional criminological frameworks, definitions of harm and justice are typically controlled by institutional actors (police, courts, lawmakers) who possess the authority to determine what counts as a crime and what responses are legitimate. These frameworks often exclude the lived experiences of those most affected by harm, particularly survivors of gendered and racialized violence, whose narratives are frequently disbelieved or dismissed (Goodmark, 2018; Richie, 2012).

On the other side of the spectrum, some vigilantes celebrated legal action, framing it as a triumph. One video captioned “HE’S BEEN CHARGED” (508,100 likes), included screenshots of court filings, offering tangible proof of justice through formal channels. The tone was jubilant, and the comments mirrored this sentiment with statements like “We love to see justice served” (23,000 likes). These moments reflect a belief in the necessity of carceral justice mechanisms. The contradictory dynamics between seeking formal justice and actively avoiding it do not suggest a lack of clarity among survivors; they highlight the plurality of justice strategies available in the digital age and the strategic deployment of those strategies to serve emotional, moral, or communal needs. Vigilante videos reflect the gap between legal justice and justice experienced by survivors (McGlynn et al., 2012). The decision to engage with the legal system or bypass it is rarely straightforward, involving not only personal risk calculations but also broader considerations about the legitimacy of state institutions, the likelihood of meaningful outcomes, and the symbolic power of public narrative control (Ahmed, 2017).

The dynamics playing out among vigilante videos exemplify the debates between carceral and anticarceral feminists. Carceral feminism relies on legal systems to address harm (Bernstein, 2012). Anticarceral feminism critiques this reliance and advocates for strategies that do not replicate structural violence or reinforce state control (Kim, 2018; O’Brien et al., 2020). The women in this study navigated between these opposite poles, sometimes even within the same video and comment section. The decision to seek legal recourse or instead engage in alternative retribution each reflect different calculations of safety, legitimacy, and power. Survivors must assess whether formal systems will validate their claims or whether informal vengeance will provide a greater sense of agency and protection. Speaking out can itself be a form of risk-taking, especially for those whose identities are marginalized and whose experiences are often doubted by institutional gatekeepers (Ahmed, 2017). For many, the decision to post publicly rather than pursue legal action stems from both a mistrust of carceral systems and a desire to control the narrative, echoing findings in feminist digital activism studies (Jackson et al., 2020). These choices are not made in isolation but are shaped by the dynamics of platform governance, the visibility economies of social media, and the cultural norms surrounding gender, power, and credibility. Video Vigilante practices reflect a strategic negotiation of vulnerability and voice, where the medium of exposure becomes part of the message itself.

Conclusion

Video Vigilantes unsettle criminal justice hierarchies by asserting alternative epistemologies of harm grounded in personal testimony, emotional resonance, and collective witnessing. Survivors seek recognition, validation, and accountability through informal channels (McGlynn et al., 2012) as acts of cultural resistance to the institutional silencing of survivor voices. These efforts, while individually undertaken, work together to collectively reshape public understandings of what justice can look like in the digital age. This trend signals a move toward “subaltern counterpublics” (Fraser, 1990), where marginalized groups produce and circulate their own meanings of justice. Despite disagreements of carceral logics between users, the TikTok vigilante genre ultimately participates in a discursive transformation, disrupting the assumed neutrality of law and offering a populist reframing of accountability, centered not on punitive closure but on visibility, disruption, and moral recognition.

Limitations and Future Research

This exploratory study is meant to prompt a larger discussion concerning the context in which digital vigilantism occurs. This paper does not address the impact these videos make on the lives of those involved. Further expansion in this area could potentially lead to more refined online advocacy. The ephemeral nature of the TikTok platform brings many limitations, including disappearing content, changing trends, and algorithmic adjustments to material while research is in process. There is potential bias in sample selection due to the influence of TikTok’s algorithm and engagement metrics. TikTok’s platform affordances, such as the search features and geolocation of the researcher, also likely had a significant impact on video selection.

While racial and gendered identity were visually inferred based on presentation, these assumptions are limited by the nature of observational research and cannot capture how creators understand or experience their own identities. Given the well-documented racialized dynamics of credibility, virality, and surveillance online (Nakamura, 2015), future research should explicitly examine how intersectional factors shape both the creation and reception of vigilante narratives on TikTok to better understand how identity affects visibility, audience response, and perceptions of legitimacy in digital justice efforts.

Implications

The implications of this study extend beyond TikTok. Video Vigilantes call attention to the evolving nature of justice in a digital era, where the power of visibility and collective action can amplify voices often silenced by traditional systems. By situating digital vigilantism within the broader context of anticarceral feminism and cultural criminology activism, this research aims to broaden academic understanding how women navigate power and resistance online. Vigilantes offer an invitation to scholars, policymakers, and activists to reimagine justice in ways that are attuned to the lived realities of those most affected by systemic failures.

TikTok vigilante videos are multifaceted acts of informal justice. They function not as monolithic reactions to harm but as complex performances of activism and agency. The narratives and audience responses analyzed in this study offer a window into the emotional, cultural, and political labor that undergirds justice-seeking in digital spaces. Video Vigilantes position justice as an unfolding dialogue between storytellers and publics, continually shaped by visibility, emotion, and technological mediation.