Becoming spectacle and performing back: a Black disabled woman’s performance practices on TikTok

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses a young Black disabled woman’s performance practices on TikTok through the lens of critical digital labor studies, disability studies, and Black feminist writings. Starting from the observation that this woman, whom I call Kyla in the paper, deliberately stages her disability – an amputated leg – on TikTok, not least to prove that this can make her an ‘influencer,’ I analyze how Kyla engages her amputated/prosthetic leg in TikTok dance content, how she navigates the attention she receives in reaction to this, including some people’s ableist call for ‘story time,’ in which she is supposed to tell the story of ‘what happened to her leg,’ and, finally, how she ‘performs back’ at her audience, society at large, and TikTok itself through producing performative content that reveals and problematizes what it means for her, as a young Black disabled woman, to produce content on TikTok and live with a disability in the US today. Building upon this analysis, I argue that Kyla’s content production practices critically and creatively engage the fine line between the possibility of disability entrepreneurialism and disability resistance on TikTok and thus effectively 'crip' the platform.