Cyberutopia

Cyberutopia: interference between dance and social networks

Is TikTok a democratizing tool for the dance scene or does it reproduce the same patterns and social inequalities as always?

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One of the most popular contents that run on TikTok (among many others) are the choreographies, which become viral by being repeated, copied, versioned and served in infinite scroll through an algorithm that adapts to the user The dance and body language developed especially among young people in this application, the mechanisms, aesthetics and codes of composition and understanding of space-time through the screen are, after all, a way of dancing and choreographing that it is linked to the medium through which dance is created and presented to the public.

Dance, from the sixties (postmodern dance), began to develop improvisational practices that sought to democratize it by emphasizing the processes and not so much the results. They were looking for integrative forms and breaking with established patterns. They claimed that all movement was an expression of dance and anyone was a dancer, regardless of their training. Currently, TikTok dances and their expansion through the networks have contributed, in a certain way, to a democratization of dance and have made it available to everyone, without distinction of gender, race, class or sex.

As a result of the globalization and internationalization that the online medium offers, dance on TikTok cannot be linked to any specific physical space or culture, but to an ethereal, intercultural space, where there is a hybridization of cultures and languages and where you can observe a community of users who share a language with its own characteristics, such as:

• Humour, DIY aesthetic (do it yourself).
• Small movements of hands and arms (so that they can fit within the vertical format of the screen).
• Illustrative relationship between dance and music lyrics.
• Choreographic notations, hand expression and emoji symbology.
• Exaggerated facial expressions.
• Seduction game with a look at the camera.
• Composition and interplay between close-ups and second shots.
• Casual or seemingly natural body language.
• Error or fail (mistake), which is always nice.
• Reaction (someone who observes and reacts to what the other does).
• Challenge.
• Very short durations (usually about 15 seconds).
• Hybridization of Afro-Latin-influenced dances (perreo, twerk, grind) with urban dances (hip-hop, dancehall, locking, popping), K-pop and J-pop.
• Dances from private or personal spaces at home (bedroom, bathroom, dining room...).

Are we living in a cyber utopia in which the same patterns and social inequalities as always are reproduced and in which the only thing that has changed is the medium?

Democratic utopia?

The recording and viewing of choreographies through the screen means that they are potentially playable and marketable from almost anywhere in the world at any time. Despite this accessibility, can we talk about a democratizing tool? Or do we live in a cyber utopia in which the same patterns and social inequalities as always are reproduced and in which the only thing that has changed is the medium? Does everyone really have an equal opportunity to make themselves known through the networks? What field of advantages and disadvantages opens up when dance is identified with the user as a marketing tool for big brands?

According to Theresa M. Senft, the figure of the influencer is not a new phenomenon, but could be described as the cultural evolution of the so-called microcelebrities: personalities with the commitment to deploy and maintain the online identity as a construction of a own brand, based on his life and his person. In this sense, "the internet contributes to a dynamic whereby users become simultaneously sellers, buyers and merchandise".

What dance forms and practices can break this dynamic? From the time we are small, we begin a process of imitating everything we see around us. As adults, already acculturated, there are body and thought patterns that, instead of seeing and repeating them, we have unconsciously integrated and normalized them. Michael Jackson (1989) speaks of an embodiment through mimicry or the awareness of the other's body within one's own body. Inspired by earlier reflections by Franz Boas and Pierre Bourdieu, he argues that there are “bodily patterns that generate mental images and that, therefore, instill moral qualities”. Jackson's statements make us reflect on the power of the app when applying the mechanism of repetition and imitation of movements, dances and acting.

The fact of seeing only content related to our tastes generates a homogenization or an exclusion of difference

Thus, we could understand this mechanism as a game or as a weapon of mass reproduction: videos that are repeated by 1,000 through everyone's personalized infinite scroll. The fact of seeing only content related to our tastes generates a homogenization or an exclusion of difference. Every system generates patterns and codes of behavior, but it also enables fractures and cracks. What possibilities do we have to create a counterculture or counterassimilation of patterns (through the same mechanism) to generate a new look or form of relationship with them?

Andrea Soto Calderón, in the book La performatividad de las imágenes, proposes "inventing forms of collective de-automation, of de-stereotyping images, which requires an attitude other than one of rejection and resentment, but of cooperation. Think visual culture not against the images, but from the images". Is it possible to reappropriate the routes and the expansion that the application has generated without entering its system? In digital networks, who creates the content? Who viralizes them? A random user or a brand or corporation with power of influence?

Counterculture TikTok

In the same way that there is a normative and homogenizing trend of bodies in social networks, there are also many user profiles that try to subvert these patterns by exaggerating the body and movement to the point of being grotesque. There is an expression of sexuality that questions and discusses the limits of what is and is not accepted by society. The image of an obscene, perverse, forbidden, deformed, monstrous, hybrid or uncataloguable body is opposed to the binary and heteropatriarchal normative image on aesthetics, body and gender. Filters, effects and image editing also facilitate the transformation of bodies.

Despite the commercialization of content, some have found empowerment where everything seemed lost

Dance has no enemies. Or, if there is one, it is an enemy that unites all generations and guilds; a system that forces the individual to produce in all spheres (personal and work) to the point of suffocation. As much as some users propose a non-normative model of language and body aesthetics in the application, it is difficult (or impossible) to escape its corporate design in terms of time, space and operation policies. The application has become an indispensable platform for marketing, and the users who master its codes are young women. Despite the commercialization of content, some have found empowerment where everything seemed lost; a job hole that only they can fill by working as tiktokers, instagramers or youtubers.

*This text was presented in the magazine Entrecate and is a synthesis of research prior to the publication of the volume "Paragrafies" by Mercat de les Flors focusing on Núria's work.