PERFORMING DEATH AND TRAUMA? PARTICIPATORY MEM(E)ORY AND THE HOLOCAUST IN TIKTOK #POVCHALLENGES

Abstract

TikTok is no longer the short-video platform for “silly dances.” Its transition from entertainment to an interest-based platform increased the visual volume of topics like the Holocaust, especially during August 2020, when a controversial meme-trend emerged under the popular hashtag #POVHolocaustChallenge. In this challenge, TikTokers were encouraged to participate in a point-of-view (POV) performance in which they reenacted fictionalized memories of Holocaust victims. This study draws attention to the unique nature of the #POVchallenge form on TikTok as a series of fictional memes that mediate users’ self-reflections on various social, political, and historical issues. By applying a multimodal analysis to 250 videos from the #POVHolocaustChallenge, we illuminate three imaginative and memetically reoccurring narratives in users’ (re)mediations of memories using POV aesthetics that we name mem(e)ories. (1) Testimonial - TikTokers posing as dead Holocaust victims, testifying from heaven after being murdered by Nazis. (2) Punitive - TikTokers playing prisoners in the present (2020) being sent back to tragic events as punishment for their crimes. (3) Escapist - TikTokers time traveling while merging 1940 with 2020 in a complex temporal interplay. Based also on interviews with fifteen TikTokers who participated in the challenges and five representatives of Holocaust-related institutions, we claim that the #POVHolocaustChallenge enables users’ (re)mediation of knowledge on past events and facilitates personal connections to the memory of the Holocaust via video-memes. The affective influence of multimodal memes on TikTok can spark conversation, interpretation, and reflection among youth while inviting the inscription of Holocaust memory into their (social media) lives.