“We will not be lectured”: understanding political fandom on TikTok

ABSTRACT

In 2020, the Misogyny Speech resurfaced and went viral on the social media platform TikTok, almost a decade after former Prime Minister Julia Gillard first presented it in Australian Parliament. This research aims to comprehend the speech’s virality through a lens of fandom theory using qualitative content analysis, to explore how users foster community and perform elements of political fandom. It considers the influence of the platform’s affordances and architecture on the formation and productivity of this fandom community. The speech’s resurgence in popularity can be characterised as a manifestation of political fandom, shaped by the platform in which it thrives. The way users embody the elements that typify political fandoms – productivity and consumption, affect, community, and contestation – is profoundly influenced by the affordances and structures of TikTok.

KEYWORDS:

• Fandom
• politics
• Julia Gillard
• Communications

Introduction

In 2012, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered the Misogyny Speech in Parliament, rebutting years of gendered attacks she had faced throughout her tenure during a debate on the future of House of Representatives Speaker Peter Slipper. Initially criticised by mainstream media (Worth, Augoustinos, & Hastie, 2015), the speech has since cultivated a status as ‘a fight song, an anthem’ that ‘plays a role for women who which they had said something but missed the moment’ (Cain, 2022).

Nearly a decade later, the speech gained viral reach once again, this time on TikTok. The COVID-19 lockdowns contributed to a sharp increase in TikTok’s popularity (Littleton, 2021) where, in the private sphere of their homes, users took to the platform, recreating viral trends. In this case, users, typically young women, re-enacted the speech, with dances, memes, and makeup routines to remixed audio of the speech. Most videos followed a format set by user Minorfauna who was credited with launching the viral trend (Rachwani & Boseley, 2021). As of June 2024, her post has received approximately 258,500 likes.

The speech’s renewed popularity among women on social media platforms is not an isolated phenomenon. Early research into the speech’s popularity juxtaposed the initial negative reception by mainstream media with the more celebratory response from the public. The initial media reaction relied on a highly gendered lens, contributing to a ‘disassociation’ of women from Australian politics (Wright & Holland, 2014) further compounded by mainstream media’s dismissal of the sexism Gillard faced (Worth, Augoustinos & Hastie, 2015). However, Donaghue’s analysis of the speech’s coverage found that despite the negative narrative surrunding the ‘gender card’, the speech was largely well received on social media (2015).

Despite the resurgence of the speech’s popularity, research into its ongoing legacy is limited. This sudden virality is worthy of closer examination to understand its legacy for a new generation in the context of TikTok – a video and image centric platform as opposed to the primarily text-based responses on Twitter and Facebook.

This research seeks to evaluate the significance of Gillard’s recent popularity on TikTok, almost a decade on from her premiership through an analysis of this response as an example of a political fandom. In doing so, this research seeks to contribute to the discourse on political fandom, contending that this conceptual framework provides helpful insight into the significance of socio-cultural elements of interpersonal political communications between users. To do so, this study relies on fandom as a conceptual framework to consider two research questions: how can this social media be conceptualised as political fandom? And how are the structure and content of this fandom shaped by the architecture and affordances of TikTok?

Literature review

Conceptualising fandom

Fandom studies, emerging from the fields of cultural and communication studies, provide a helpful framework for understanding engagement with media texts, communities, public figures and, by extension, politics. Fandom is a multifaceted concept; it encompasses not only admiration but also active participation, community development, emotion, and political engagement. Drawing on the foundational framework articulated by Dean (2017), this literature review navigates through four fundamental elements of fandom; productivity and consumption, community, affect and politicisation of fan cultures.

As digital and interactive media have become more central to both political communication and interpersonal interactions, fandom theory embraces a shift from the traditional relationship between consumer and producer towards a framework of participatory culture, with the consumers no longer being passive receptors, but producers in their own right (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel, 2009). Simultaneously, in the context of political communications, consumers are also no longer passive, with users discussing politics with their peers online, and initiating two-way conversations with political figures, beyond the traditional producer–consumer relationship (Jenkins, Billard, Close, Yomna, & Forelle, 2017). Through this examination, this literature review highlights the value of fandom as a conceptual framework that provides helpful nuance for understanding consumption and production of political media while emphasising opportunities for future research.

Productivity and consumption

Productivity and consumption are fundamental to fandom theory. This persective centres consumers of media as active participators through their own interpretation of a key text, their production of new media related to the original text and the construction of the original text itself. Fandom theory acknowledges and empowers active audiences, and as Duffett argued, this view is significant because ‘the distinction between active producers and passive consumers has been erased because both are now actively engaged as players in the flow of media culture’ (Duffett, 2013).

Fiske defines this producitivity in three key forms. Semiotic and enunciative productivity involve the interpreted meanings emerging from one’s ‘social identity’ and ‘social experiences’ (Fiske, 1992, p. 37) and the further meaning generated through social interactivity between audience members. Textual productivity, which is more specific to fandom, refers to the production of identifiable forms of meaning-making practiced by creating and circulating texts about the original text, or subject of the fandom, for example, writing fanfiction or producing fan art. Similarly, Jenkins describes this element as a process of audiences ‘poaching’ (2012) media and using its elements to create their own narratives and address issues of importance to them.

Ultimately, productivity involve not only the creation of new works inspired by a media event but also the convergence of media and audience that turns ‘text into an event not an art object’ (Fiske, 1992, p. 40). In other words, the impact and meaning of the media are blurred and altered through the audience’s engagement with the original text, creating an impact that is not limited to a static work, but evolves into an event in and of itself.

Community

In defining community, a shared sense of identity and emotional ties is fundamental. Dean takes this further, arguing that it is important for users to self-identify as fans through terms like ‘Treckies’ for Star Trek fans or ‘Directioners’ for One Direction fans (2017). Others argue that an explicit identity is not necessary; instead, it is the mere act of engagement that results from being a part of the shared ‘meaning-making’ process and interacting with the ‘interpretive community’ to develop ‘culturally significant’ meaning ‘shared by a larger group’ (Jenkins, 2018, pp. 16–17). In this way, fandom behaves as a form of ‘community of practice’ (Wegner, 1998), developing shared knowledge, meanings, and practices. By extension, fandoms are groups where membership can be delineated based on expertise in a subject, with a fan’s contribution to cultural discourse, production of new content or meaning is celebrated, albeit without a single, clear, repository of knowledge or fact related to the community and its subject (Hills, 2015).

Sandvoss and Kearns take an even broader view, highlighting a need for fandom studies to expand to ‘reflect the range of different fan engagement as the degree to which the permeate patterns of media engagement, including the more extensive exploration of everyday life, ordinary fans’ (2016). They argue that even minor contributions to a fandom community still build knowledge and meaning within those communities, and it is this sort of casual fan behaviour that warrants closer analysis.

This has also highlighted the need for scholars to qualify the boundaries of online fandom communities in research methodology. Early online fandom research relied on platforms like LiveJournal, Reddit or Fanfiction which organise users and members into explicitly enclosed forums or communities that members opt in to. As social media has moved to individualised platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok some have argued that fandoms are supposedly less quantifiable or even less likely to form in the first place (Fernback, 2007, p. 54). However, if we adopt a broader definition that emphasises shared values and support for a specific text, there is an emerging need for scholars to consider how communities are formed and sustained within individualised platforms and algorithmically generated feeds. There is a greater need to understand how communities emerge within and across platforms that are not built or organised into thematic communities.

Affect

The final element highlighted by Dean is affect, which refers to the emotionally invested support for the subject of the fandom and its members (2017, p. 412). Grossberg describes affect as ‘what gives “color”, “tone” or “texture” to our experiences’. (Grossberg, 2002, p. 56) highlighting that it can be understood as quantitatively through the level or strength of investment in the fandom or media, or qualitatively through the type of investment (p. 57).

Many researchers have come to refer to this simply as the emotion or passion a fan invests in their fandom or media. Hills, for example, describes the affective sensibility of fandom as ‘emotional attachment and passions’ (2013, p. 60) so fundamental to fandoms that researchers often overlook it: ‘Without the emotional attachments and passions of fans, fan cultures would not exist, but fans and academics often take these attachments for granted or do not place them centre-stage in their explorations on fandom’ (2013, p. 60).

In a political context, the role of affect and emotional investment has been a subject of increasing interest among researchers in relation to the concept of the public sphere, a ‘realm of social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed’ (Habermas, Lennox, & Lennox, 1974). Many modernist theorists centred rationality at the forefront of this approach, building the case for the importance of ‘a rational or social operation which is cultural-neutral’ (Taylor, 1992, p. 206). However, like the school of cultural communications examining affective sentiment of fandom communities, scholars have also considered the centrality of affect and emotional investment in politics and political communication and its consequences.

Numerous studies have discussed the role of ‘the irrationa’ in politics - ‘fear, anger, denial, hate, revenge and so on ….. That can spur engagement and lead to destructive political behaviour’ (Dahlgren, 2018, p.11). There has been significant focus on the role of irrationality in creating division, and partisanship through an ‘affective orientation to an important group object’ (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960, p. 121). However, fewer studies have examined affective sentiment as a positive emotion, with constructive outcomes, with Marcus arguing that the ‘major source of irrationality has delayed (until recently) attention to the possibility that emotions, in at least some instances can motivate cooperative behaviour’ (Marcus, 2000, p. 227).

In brief, the theoretical debate between rationality and emotion in academic discourse on the public sphere highlights that the case for analysing the role of affect in political communications is not a new phenomenon; however, more favourable sentiment is under researched. It is, in part, the centrality of emotional investment in the object of fandom, and ‘the invalidating of personal experience in the name of the more objective social sciences’ (McRobbie, 1980, p. 18) in the history of fandom studies that is essential to ‘understanding gendered relations with popular media’ (Jenkins, 2014, p. 93).

Politicised fandom

Fandom theory has emerged as an analytical lens to analyse collective political participation and inter-personal political communications, offering a framework that seeks to understand social, cultural, and emotional elements of communication often overlooked in political communication literature. Many scholars agree that cultural engagement can be a form of political participation. For example, Dahlgren encouraged academics to ‘look beyond the formal political system’ (2006, p. 276). Similarly, Livingstone urged academics to broaden a conception of citizenship and publics, highlighting that the distinction between a cultural or media audience and the public is negligible (Livingstone, 2005). It is in this vein that political fandom has emerged as a framework to analyse how cultural fandoms become politicised, and how the cultural behaviours of fandom can bleed into traditional politics and political communication.

Dean’s conceptualisation of politicised fandom identifies a fourth element of contestation, in addition to those already discussed (Dean, 2017, p. 411). He argues that politicised fandoms are not exclusively fandoms emerging in support of a political figure; rather, the term encompasses fandom communities that are ‘sustained by the intentional collective pursuit of a particular vision of socio political-change’ (Dean, 2017, p. 415). In practice, fandoms can be political, formed around a political subject or issue. Or, they can be politicised, referring to fandoms of a specific cultural object simultaniousy adopting a political cause, and pursuing citizenship and advocacy, with members united in their affinity for the cultural object (Hinck, 2019).

When it comes to political fandoms, studies have sought to understand these phenomena in practice. However, most studies are limited to American or British contexts. For example, Erikson’s analysis of Hillary Clinton’s MySpace page (Erikson, 2008) and more recent, studies into Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter following (Rodriguez & Goretti, 2022). In the UK, researchers uncovered a celebrity-type following emerging from Twitter audiences around former political leaders (Dean & Andrews, 2021). Research into Australian political fandoms is limited. Barnes and Middlemost’s analysis of the “Simpsons Against The Liberals” Facebook page focuses on anti-fan behaviour uniting a collective community and identity (Barnes & Middlemost, 2022). It would be valuable to understand if political fandoms form around leaders in an Australian electoral context of compulsory voting and a less ‘presidential’ style of political leadership (Kefford, 2013).

Research question

This paper seeks to address the following research questions:

1. How can TikTok’s collective and viral response to Julia Gillard’s Misogyny Speech be conceptualised as an example of politicised fandom in Australia?

2. How are the content and structure of the fandom influenced by the structures and affordances of TikTok?

Method

To understand how the viral revival of Gillard’s Misogyny Speech embodies elements of political fandom and how the platform shaped that fandom, this study employed a qualitative content analysis of TikTok posts related to Gillard and her speech.

This method was adopted to capture the ‘meanings, emphasis and themes of a message’ (Altheide 1996) as they emerged ‘inductively’ (Parker, Sundage, & Lee, 2011). In the context of studying a community, this approach ensures that content isn’t viewed in isolation but is considered in the context of how users interact with each other, the themes and the opportunities and limitations of the platform used to both create and share content. This approach has been adopted for existing studies of political content on TikTok (Serrano, Papakyriakopoulos, & Hegelich, 2020).

The features of the platform were also considered in the process of sourcing data for analysis. Video content was scraped based on hashtags connected to the Gillard trend; however, not all content used hashtags, which are often relied upon to gather data for similar studies of Twitter content. In light of this, was also sourced using relevant search terms with videos scraped until the search results were no longer relevant, and some posts were identified and scraped by shared audio tracks attached to videos.

This approach collected 418 TikTok posts for analysis. We analysed the videos themselves, including elements like the audio, mise-en-scene, and the meaning created by the accompanying captions. Comments attached to the videos were not analysed due to the volume of content involved, but were occasionally examined and referenced to understand additional context of a post.

Findings

Video posted by Minorfauna

Within this dataset, an overwhelming proportion of videos communicated support for Gillard or the Misogyny Speech. Many followed a format established by user Minorfauna, also known as Abbey Hansen, who was credited with leading this trend (Rachwani & Boseley, 2021). Minorfauna uses the audio, mise-en-scene and action in the video to create a dramatic ‘glam-bot’ moment and communicate a sense of feminine empowerment to her audience. The video featured an original ‘sound’ which merged audio of Gillard’s speech with pop song ‘Bitch Boss’ by Doja Cat. This mash-up produced the lyrics:

Well, I hope the leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a house of representatives, he needs a mirror. I’m a bitch, I’m a boss, I’m a bitch, I’m a boss, I’m a shine like gloss.

Minorfauna lip syncs to the audio and applies her makeup looking at the front-facing camera as if it were a mirror, and in doing so, addresses her audience directly, bringing them in to a distinctly private sphere. She puts on a green coat and picks up a Louis Vuitton branded backpack, each creating a sense of glamour or financial wealth. As the beat drops, she wraps the coat around her body with a flourish and uses a slow-motion effect to zoom into her face, building the salience of this ‘mic-drop’ moment.

These elements, combined with the caption: ‘After multiple requests, I bring you my take on the ICONIC Misogyny speech by Julia Gillard with a #glambot twist #bosschallenge #quarantine’. build a short skit interprets the speech as an admirable and highly feminised example of strength and authority. A multimodal rhythmic analysis of this post conducted by Han and Zappavigna found that the combination of elements in this video communicates the Gillard Misogyny Speech as ‘a culturally iconic speech’ that, in this format ‘share[s] feminist values … to enact an identity that condemns misogynist and sexist men, particularly those in positions of power’ (Han & Zappavigna, 2024, p. 73).

This post is described in detail because of its significance in this dataset; this video has wide reach on the platform with 258,500 likes and 1.8 million views as of June 2024. This impact was recognised beyond the platform, with multiple mainstream media outlets reporting on the popularity of her video (Harmon & Amaani, 2020; Rachwani & Boseley, 2021). This video format was replicated by other users within this dataset with at least 121 original videos in the 418-video dataset using the same audio track created for this post.

Admiration for Gillard and the speech

Users express their support for Gillard and the speech in three ways: stitched videos in response to prompts, imitating Gillard and using post captions.

Within this dataset 29 videos were stitched, that is, posted in response to a prompt video. These prompts included, ‘What is your comfort, random obscure YouTube video?’ and ‘I want to know your favourite moment in politics no matter the part of country’. Each of these videos featured users replying to the prompt with a video of the speech or a video of themselves re-enacting the speech, thereby sharing their general support for the moment. These posts also worked to cultivate a sense that her speech is unknown creating a sense of an in-group of those who know this ‘obscure’ moment, and those who do not.

Second, users created video re-enactments of Gillard’s speech, demonstrating both their knowledge of, and enthusiasm for this moment in Parliament through an almost literal embodiment of Gillard. These re-enactments took many forms. Many users followed Minorfauna’s template of performing the speech to a dramatic build up, usually while doing their hair or make-up to camera. Some users posted videos of themselves holding a display playing the Misogyny Speech, while they spoke along with the audio in time, demonstrating their knowledge of the speech’s words, timing and tone. These videos were typically created by young, predominantly white women and filmed in private sphere contexts – usually filmed in homes or bedrooms to a front-facing camera.

Finally, support was also communicated through captions expressing support and emotion towards Gillard. For example, users captioned videos with, ‘I love you Julia Gillard’, ‘Remember this glorious moment in aus politics? #auspol’ and ‘Australia’s First and Best Prime Minister < 3’. In doing so, these users are expressing not just political sentiment for Gillard, but communicatting with an emotiona tone supported by content that is personalised- filmed and created within the private sphere of their own homes or bedrooms - reflecting the affective element of politicised fandom outlined by Dean through both text and the mise-en-scene of these posts.

Personalisation & interpretations of the speech

Users personaised the speech, leveraging it to highlight events of their everyday lives, debates from other communities or discuss personal views on gender and politics. Many users interpreted the speech as a feminised rallying cry or symbol of inner strength, describing through captions like ‘JUST MY DAILY AFFIRMATIONS IN MY MORNING ROUTINE’ and ‘WE will not be lecture by ANY man. Let’s go ladies’.

Similarly, some users applied the speech to other popular culture moments to which they felt a level of emotional or personal investment. For example, one user applied the Misogyny Speech as a tool to oppose gendered criticism of pop song W.A.P by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Participants and community

While all users participated in the community through their productivity, some users in this dataset sought to communicate their knowledge of the Misogyny Speech as a point of pride, demonstrating that, within this community, superior knowledge of the speech is a point of pride. Multiple users posted videos of themselves speaking along to the speech as it played on a laptop screen in the foreground to emphasise knowledge of the speech’s words, timing, and intonation. This sense was supported through video captions that stressed the value of the effort put into memorising the speech, or a view that knowledge of the speech was to be admired. For example: ‘Please like, this took a lot of memory’ and ‘If u can’t sing along u can’t ride with us’.

A small number of videos within this dataset were posted by large, typically media-based organisations sharing content for promotional purposes. For example, GoggleBox Australia, ABC iView and The Guardian each posted videos of the speech, or footage from media related to Gillard or the speech to promote their services. The posts contained similar elements to others in the community – they express positivity towards the speech and sought to engage with this imagined community discussing Gillard on TikTok; however, they are posted by a corporation rather than an individual highlighting the porous nature of the network formed on the platform.

A small number of posts expressed negative attitudes towards Gillard. That does not imply that only a small number of TikTok users that hold negative views towards Gillard exist, but their posts may reference different search terms, hashtags or audio to those identified by this study. One clear example of negative content posted was a video that featured the user lip syncing to an audio track that stated, ‘I wish you well in hell’. The video caption only listed a series of hashtags: ‘#AustraliaCorrputGovernment #ThePedoAgenda #JuliaGillard #Clintons’ This video appeared to link Gillard to conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s involvement in human trafficking. Notably, the user wore large sunglasses, obscuring their identity from their audience. Since the analysis of this dataset in January 2022, this video and its associated profile have been deleted. It is not known whether it was deleted by the user themselves or removed by the platform.

Other examples of negative sentiment towards Gillard include videos of her falling during her visit to India. Two users posted this video in response to the prompt calling for favourite moments in politics. However, some users painted this moment in a positive light. For instance, one user posted a video of himself dressed as Gillard, re-enacting the fall, and lip-syncing along with the interview she gave after the event. Neither the content of the video nor the caption: ‘Julia Gillard Fall #JuliaGillard #Bored #Isolation’ gives a clear indication of his intention beyond humour. There is no clear positive or negative attitude towards Gillard expressed.

Despite this study not focusing on the comments of videos, we examined the comments in this case to understand how the content was received by the audience because this post received a substantial number of likes - 19,400. The comments were generally positive towards Gillard, her interview, and the user who imitated her. Comments included: ‘I just love that she’s used such a benign incident to address men’s privilege. Bless her’ and ‘Julia was too pure of heart for us!’. These comments suggest that even though a user’s content is portraying a momentcommonly referenced as negative, users still embraced it as an opportunity to praise Gillard.

Finally, 44 posts within this dataset were coded as irrelevant to the Gillard fandom due to their content. These posts appeared in this dataset because they contained hashtags like #misogynyspeech; however, they did not contain any reference to Gillard, the speech, Australian politics or culture. For example, one Spanish speaking user posted videos about experiences of misogyny she encountered while travelling through Europe. Despite seemingly not contributing to the community, these videos highlight the porous nature of this community. Users beyond the Gillard fandom used the same hashtags as the fandom community, rgenerating overlapping conversations held within the same virtual space.

Discussion

This discussion follows the four elements of politicised fandom theorised by Dean (2017); productivity and consumption, affective sentiment, community, and contestation, finding that all are embodied in this media event, albeit influenced by the structures of the platform it exists within. In doing so, this research demonstrates the utility of fandom theory in understanding the socio-cultural elements of interpersonal political communications.

Productivity and consumption

This analysis reveals a collective interpretation of Gillard and the Misogyny Speech cultivated through the creation and sharing of these TikTok posts. These interpretations not only prolong the impact of the speech, almost a decade on from its original delivery, but come to form part of the speech as an ongoing media, political and cultural event.

Fiske identifies three forms of productivity in fandoms: semiotic, enunciative and textual productivity (Fiske, 1992, p. 37). Semiotic productivity is regarded as personal interpretations; how consumers interpret meaning from a text (p. 37). Enunciative productivity relates to creating meaning through interpersonal relationships, such as discussing a text with another person to discuss interpretations (p. 37). Finally, textual productivity refers to audiences generating new texts in relation to an original text (p. 39). In Dean’s (2017) conceptualisation of politicised fandom, he argues that textual and enunciative productivity in particular are fundamental acts of productivity and consumption, essential to understanding political fandom (p. 7).

Dean’s interpretation of Fiske embodies enunciative productivity as virtual conversations or talk-based interactivity between users. As such, he focuses on social media conversation, forums, and other forms of direct, language-based interactions (Dean, 2017, p. 15). However, this view overlooks the unspoken elements of enunciative productivity: ‘talk is not the only means of enunciation available. The styling of hair or make-up, the choice of clothes or accessories are ways of constructing a social identity and therefore asserting one’s membership of a particular fan community’ (Fiske, 1992, p. 38). In the case of this analysis, there is a distinct lack of direct interactivity between users. Users rarely tag or respond to other users within their posts. Instead, their unification and interactivity occur through the algorythmically generated feeds of videos, compiled together in single feed or search result unique to the user’s experience on the app. As a result, specific behaviours, styles, or tropes are repeated across videos, suggesting shared meanings, rather than direct communication conceptualised as enunciative productivity. While each video was unique and distinct from the others, demonstrating textual productivity, many shared similar elements. For examle, some involved users re-enacting the speech while doing hair or make-up, suggesting that users have collectively enunciated this element as a way of asserting a sense of femininity and authority in relation to the speech. In this way, users are demonstrating both textual and enunciative productivity, mirroring Hills’ finding that ‘digital fandom’s affordances and activities indicate a fluidity of semiotic, enunciative and textual productivity’ (Hills, 2013, p. 130).

In terms of the meaning created through this productivity, these videos communicate shared values of feminism, empowerment, Australian identity, and appreciation for Gillard among others. Collectively, this content communicates the view put forward by Gillard that her speech has become a ‘fight song, an anthem’ (Cain, 2022). However, instead of these interpretations being cultivated within a small, defined network of users, they fill what is a seemingly endless feed of content. As a result, the productivity is bound to the social space and time that the fandom exists in, albeit, perhaps not as Fiske (1992, p. 31) had intended it. Instead, the fandom is dependent on the unobservable algorithm of each unique users ‘For You Page’, creating an individualised experience of productivity unique to each user’s digital footprint and popular content on the platform at that time. Similarly, the social space Fiske referred to becomes a distinctly digital space informed just as much by technology as social connections.

Fiske’s pre-social media conceptualisation of productivity does not apply seamlessly to digital platforms (Hills, 2013) like TikTok. In this case, users are demonstrating textual productivity through creation of new videos, audios, and written text captions in response to Gillard’s speech. This productivity contributes to prolonging the impact of the speech almost 10 years on from its original delivery and contributes to the speech as an ongoing media, cultural and political event. That is, this viral event on TikTok is an element of the original text in and of itself.

Fiske argues that:

Fan productivity is not limited to the production of new texts: it also participates in the construction of the original text and thus turns the commercial narrative or performance into popular culture. Fans are very participatory. Sports crows wearing their teams’ colors or rock audiences dressing and behaving like the bands become part of the performance. This melding of the team or performer and the fan into a productive community minimises the differences between artist and audience and turns text into an event, not an art object. (Fiske, 1992, p. 40)

Fiske’s argument that fandom behaviour is a part of the text itself, not a distinct separate entity validates this social media event as not only a response to the speech in a modern context but an extension of the speech and its impact. In this way, the impact of the Misogyny Speech is not isolated to the confines of Hansard or the initial video recording. Therefore, interpreting this response as an act of fandom consolidates the speech and it’s response as a continuous political and cultural event. In this symbiotic relationshp, the speech earns historic, political, and cultural significance from its response, just as the response takes from the speech to create new content and meaning.

Contributing to participatory culture is not limited to creating and posting original videos related to the fandom or an explicit textual productivity. In this case, users who have liked, viewed, or shared videos without creating their own content through posts or comments are still contributing to this element. Participatory culture is not a one-size-fits-all approach, with Jenkins defining it as ‘relational rather than an absolute term: forms of culture may be more or less participatory’ (Jenkins, 2018, p. 21). In this case, users who are liking or sharing posts are signaling to the broader audience which posts are more or less popular within this community. Furthermore, those likes contribute to TikTok’s algorithm recommending videos to that user, or other users. This suggests that a level of enunciative productivity is occurring to prioritise videos within the community through video likes or shares, a comparatively low-effort behaviour.

Community

The community within this dataset is complicated by the viral reach of Misogyny Speech related content on TikTok through 2020 and 2021. Instead of a single united community, these findings reveal a highly porous fandom community which is focused on Julia Gillard and the Misogyny Speech but also influenced by other trends or communities on the platform. This community is created and maintained by three key elements. First, the algorithm and structures of TikTok. Second, the imagined community within this dataset generated through users' shared experiences and values. Finally, this structure is legitimised by recognition from Gillard and the presence of external groups within the dataset.

This community is described as porous because most users within this dataset are communicating similar values or using similar video formats, generating a collective sense of their support for Gillard and political attitudes. However, there are several contributors to this dataset who do not express affective sentiment towards Gillard, identify themselves as a fan and seemingly are engaging on the basis that the trend is viral. Furthermore, the permeable nature of the For You Page and search results contributed to other communities or ‘sides’ of TikTok bleeding into this one – for example, through the presence of content related to other subject areas like Harry Potter and Megan Thee Stallion.

Much of the research on fandoms in digital spaces is aided by the architecture of the platform they exist on. For example, existing research into communities on Live Journal or sub-reddit communities is aided by the enclosed nature of those virtual spaces with members clearly opting in to contribute (Bury, 2017). However, the community in this dataset is less clear cut. Some members are clearly fans; for example, Minorfauna who receives wide recognition by her peers and created multiple different videos within this dataset about Gillard is clearly a fan, and plays a significant role in the community.

However, other contributors in this dataset may not necessarily meet a criteria of ‘sustained engagement’ (Lee Harrington & Bielby, 2010, p. 434) used to define fans. Given most of these posts were all shared around a similar time, it is very possible that many contributors are not necessarily present in this community specifically for Gillard, but they might be simply contributing to a popular trend on a platform to gain visibility. For example, one user posted a video combining Gillard’s Misogyny Speech with a video entitled ‘berries and cream’ that was popular on the platform around the same time, despite having little to do with Gillard herself. Similarly, many organisations like TikTok, The Guardian and Channel 10 have highly liked posts that have contributed to this dataset. The fact that these posts were not created by people but by organisations calls into question their community formation.

This issue highlights the importance of considering, in practical terms, in what way are users united in their community. In this case, community is not measured by direct interactivity between users. This is because videos were posted by users on their own profile, with very few of those videos tagging or mentioning other users. While there could be a level of interactivity in the comments section where we could expect users to comment in response to videos, this analysis did not examine comments for two reasons: the data in the comments in addition to videos were too voluminous for this analysis and comments can only be accessed from a logged in account, posing the risk of the researcher’s own TikTok behaviour informing the way information was presented on the platform.

Instead, these fans are united by their shared experiences, values, culture and enthusiasm for Gillard. This finding mirrors the findings of both Jenkins (2018) and Bacon-Smith (1991, p. 51) who have argued that community members are united not necessarily by direct interactivity, but shared values, a sense of family, allowing members to engage in various ways, with varying intensity. In the case of this community, users are united by their agreed belief that Gillard is an ‘icon’ of Australian culture, that the Misogyny Speech is a symbol of empowerment, and that empowerment is intrinsically linked to femininity. Their repetition of these themes through motifs like users applying their make-up or dancing to the speech implies that these users are not tied by their direct links, but by these shared interpretations of the speech. Furthermore, they qualify this as a distinct space or community through their descriptions of Gillard’s speech as ‘obscure’, implying that only a select membership would know or admire the speech to their level.

This sense of unification between users is externally legitimised by the presence of content created by organisations and recognition from Gillard. As outlined in the findings, a number of videos within this dataset were shared by media organisations like The Guardian or Channel 10. TikTok as well shared a video of Gillard being interviewed by popular user Minorfauna. The presence of these organisations highlights that these shared elements that unite users are identifiable to external observers, reinforcing a sense of communit and a clear in-group and out-group in this online space.

Affect

The element of affective sentiment is one of the least disputed elements of fandom theory, often taken as a given by academics. In this case, a level of ‘affective sensibility’ (Erikson, 2008, p. 14) is fundamental in communicating support for Gillard and political values. However, this is again complicated by the structures of TikTok and the presence of users who may not have an emotional investment in their interpretations but are following a TikTok trend or challenge.

Affective sensibility is the ‘colour’ “tone: or ‘texture’ of a fandom experience, embodying the quantity and quality of energy in a creator’s investment in a fandom (Grossberg, 2002). In this case, affective sentiment is revealed within this dataset through the level of personalisation and passion. Within this community, many users are celebrating their knowledge of the speech, qualifying it as niche and encouraging other users to watch the speech in its entirety. Many users state that they love Gillard, the speech and uphold her as an icon or queen. This finding mirrors literature that supports the study of politicised fandom, highlighting that the emotion or affective sentiment of ‘political enthusiasm’ is often overlooked by literature that emphasises the importance of rationality and logic in the public sphere (Sandvoss, 2013)

However, as discussed in the community section, the presence of media organisations and contributors who may not be fans, but still contribute to this viral trend, dilutes the volume of affective sentiment within this dataset. This finding mirrors the view that ‘participatory culture is a relational rather than absolute term’ (Jenkins, 2018, p. 24), as well as Moon’s view (2018, p. 33–34) that politicised fandoms can exist on a spectrum of behavioural and emotional indicators ranging from worship or obsession to fan community engagement. Some users in this community demonstrate emotional investment by calling themselves a fan, encouraging users to watch the speech and explicitly talking about their affection for Gillard. On the other hand, other users are simply engaging with the community on a rudimentary level by participating in the viral trend.

Their contribution to the fandom may not be the ‘regular’ and ‘emotional’ investment envisaged by Sandvoss (2005, p. 8). However, the act of creating video content is certainly a level of investment beyond the more casual appreciation of the fandom subject (Dean, 2017, p. 8). In this case, users are practising the interpretive productivity of fandom, they are contributing to the fandom community and communicating a positive attitude towards Gillard; however, their participation is also influenced by the speech reaching a viral audience on the platform.

As a result, in addition to understanding an individual’s fandom behaviour on a scale, on a macro level, these findings suggest that impassioned and emotional investment of fandom can exist within a wider orbit of content and creators. That wider orbit of content exists because the fandom is not an enclosed space and, where a fandom or elements of a fandom go viral, a wider audience jumps on the bandwagon, participating by creating content. While they may not have the same level of emotional investment, they still practise fandom and their presence contributes to legitimising the fandom, reinforcing a sense of in-group and out-group, and making it more visible to a wider audience. This highlights the need for further research into how communities are generated and sustained on algorithmic platforms, and their implications for fandom theory.

Politics and contestation

This fandom demonstrates contestation, the final element of politicised fandoms, through their content on feminism, support for Gillard and the Labor Party and negativity expressed towards the Liberal and National Parties that were in government when this dataset was extracted. This suggests fandom can be positioned as a practice of political participation and further highlights the similarities between the political public sphere and media audiences.

In the most obvious examples, contributors to this fandom express contestation through their support for Gillard and their communication of messages opposing policy from the then Liberal National Government. Importantly, these values are communicated not just from significant leaders in the community like Gillard herself or Minorfauna, mirroring Dean’s argument that the ‘representative claims oriented towards contesting perceived injustices and transforming wider social relations … . Are articulated not only by high profile political and/or cultural figures, but also by ordinary fans’ (Dean, 2017, p. 415). While users like Minorfauna were communicating feminist values and support for Gillard, this sentiment was echoed by users who were less visible within the community, with fewer likes or followers.

This act of contributing to a political fandom through the creation and distribution of content that supports specific socio-political values or a specific political figure, in this case Gillard, can be qualified as an example of political participation. The definition of political participation has been contested in academia, especially as technology has gained significant cultural, social, and political influence in western democracies. Some academics rely on a narrow definition specific to political institutions. More recently, scholars have argued for a broader interpretation that considers informal participation through avenues like interpersonal political communication. Wright (2012) for example argues that the interpersonal political communication occurring in online ‘third spaces’ is often overlooked as an example of political participation but certainly contributes to the public sphere. Similarly, Dahlgren has urged academics to ‘look beyond the formal political system’ (Dahlgren, 2006, p. 276) highlighting that socio-cultural engagement in political discussion is a form of civic engagement. In this vein, the cultural and social communication of this community is an example of not just political fandom, but legitimate political participation.

Conclusion

Through a qualitative content analysis, this research found that TikTok posts about Julia Gillard and the Misogyny Speech emerging from 2020 can be considered an example of a political fandom in an Australian context. The productivity of this fandom contributes to the media event in and of itself, forming a broader collective memory of Gillard’s speech as a rallying cry and moment of empowerment still relevant almost a deade on. In so doing, this case study highlights the value of studying these socio-cultural elements of communication which are valued in fandom scholarship, but often overlooked in a political context.

Additionally, this research highlights that the platform, and particularly how content is organised on a platform, can play a significant role in forming community connections between users. These findings identify an opportunity for future research into how thematic connections are formed through algorithmically generated networks, often without the direct interactivity of hashtags or tagging users. Furthermore, it also highlights some of the challenges associated with researching TikTok data. For example, trends are cycled through users ‘For You Page’ rapidly, suggesting further research is needed to understand the factors behind emerging trends and their visibility. In this case, views associated with the hashtags of this study continue to grow, suggesting that this community has continued, but its form and visibilitiy continues to be influenced by the vagarities of TikTok’s algorithm.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).