Of Friendship, Love, and Community: Dalit Girlhood on TikTok

In a recent social media revolution, TikTok, a Chinese video-focused social networking service, caught the attention of Indian youth and teens. The platform offered a window into the lives, desires, and dreams voiced through the “performance” of their identities. The application gave Indian Dalit girls, from rural India, a platform to break taboo ideas about caste and initiate friendship and love amongst communities. Dalit girls use the online platform TikTok as a “rich site for understanding how self-assertion and forging of intimacies constitute a potent form of anti-caste activism” (Subramanian, Feminist Media Studies 21:154–156, 2021, 156). In this paper, I intend to understand Dalit girlhood in India through their participation in TikTok and how this digital space acts as a third space for marginalized girls to explore, reinvent, and claim their Dalit girlhood.