TikTok’s Digital Blackface Problem

Under the hashtags #Ghetto and #CripWalkChallenge, white teens appropriate Black culture

It started with a voicemail.

In August 2018, a video clip featuring a recording of an angry employee berating her boss began to spread across Twitter. In the audio, the employee accuses her boss of being racist amidst a stream of cutting insults and threats. From Twitter, the video traveled to YouTube, where it was remixed with the instrumental of the City Girls’ “Act Up” and racked up millions of views.

Then, it came to TikTok. On New Year’s Eve, 2019, Katie Betzing of the popular YouTube vlogging couple Jatie Vlogs gave the voicemail the TikTok treatment in a short clip featuring dance moves, drama, and playacting. Betzing, who is white, bursts into her room, takes off her earrings, and begins half-dancing, pointing her finger in a stereotypically Black woman fashion as she mouths along to the voicemail. The video’s caption reads: “POV: Your Ghetto Co working [sic] goes off on her manager after having a tik tok for one month #fyp #fy #goodbye2019.”

For some, the video might read as harmless fun. But for others, such videos raise serious questions about how minorities are represented on TikTok and how such platforms disconnect songs and dances from their…