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ABSTRACT
The “African aunties” hashtag has over 21 million views on the video-sharing app TikTok. Akinbola examines how African women and girls embody and perform the African auntie on TikTok, focusing on three types of videos: Deprecating auntie performances, celebratory auntie performances, and re-staged encounters with aunties. Specifically analyzing videos created by and/or featuring African women and girls, Akinbola argues that these content creators practice “digital disbelonging” by embracing the personal and cultural importance of their African aunties, while explicitly rejecting the forms of gendered surveillance, discipline and shame that shape their day to day lives.
Acknowledgements
I am beyond grateful to all of the African Auntie TikTok creators for their brilliance, courage, and creativity, and to Maame Adwoa (@jowodaaa) for trusting me enough to share her story. Her insights were invaluable. I also thank Kareem Khubchandani for asking me about the place of aunties in my project, which led me to this exciting project and for his ongoing feedback on this article. Lastly, thank you to the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10462937.2022.2061110)
Notes
1 Although I am choosing to focus on these three types of videos in this paper, the rapid output of new videos on the platform renders the entire #african aunties genre in a constant state of reinvention. By the time this article is published, there will be thousands more videos and millions more views.