Identity negotiation strategies among Indonesian LGBT diaspora on TikTok amid digital persecution

Dwi Firli Ashari

doi:10.21107/sml.v9i1.33897

Identity negotiation strategies among Indonesian LGBT diaspora on TikTok amid digital persecution

Dwi Firli Ashari

Abstract

In Indonesia, the LGBT community remains stigmatized as a threat to national culture. This hostility compels many LGBT Indonesians to migrate, yet their digital presence on platforms like TikTok continues to attract persecution from Indonesian audiences. This study examines how two Indonesian LGBT diaspora members, Kasim (@thereal_indobule, Australia) and Ragil (@ragilmahardika, Germany), negotiate their identities on TikTok and respond strategically to the digital persecution those articulations provoke. Employing critical content analysis of 70 TikTok videos and their accompanying comments, the study draws on Stuart Hall’s cultural identity theory, Ponzanesi’s digital diaspora framework, and Wijaya’s concept of digital homophobia. Findings reveal four thematic strategies of identity negotiation: performative entry and gradual disclosure, everyday domesticity and diaspora narration, familial and relational visibility, and direct audience engagement. Two counter-persecution strategies are identified: gay visibility as strategic normalization and mock impoliteness as discursive resistance. The study contributes to digital diaspora and queer media scholarship by demonstrating how TikTok functions as a contested space where marginalized identities are simultaneously performed, policed, and defended through platform-specific creative practices.

Keywords

identity negotiation; digital diaspora; TikTok; LGBT; digital persecution

Full Text:

PDF

References

Anderson, K. E. (2020). Getting acquainted with social networks and apps: It is time to talk about TikTok. Library Hi Tech News, 37(4), 7–12. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-01-2020-0001

Andersson, K. B. (2019). Digital diasporas: An overview of the research areas of migration and new media through a narrative literature review. Human Technology, 15(2), 142–180. https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201906123154

Boellstorff, T. (2005). The gay archipelago: Sexuality and nation in Indonesia. Princeton University Press.

Cassidy, E., & Wang, W. Y. (2018). Gay men’s digital cultures beyond Gaydar and Grindr: LINE use in the gay Chinese diaspora of Australia. Information, Communication & Society, 21(6), 851–865. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1437201

Ciszek, E. (2017). Public relations, activism, and identity: A cultural-economic examination of contemporary LGBT activism. Public Relations Review, 43(4), 809–816. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.01.005

Cover, R. (2015). Digital identities: Creating and communicating the online self. Academic Press.

Eckert, V. S., Catharina, F., & Vitlif, O. (2022, November 10). Wortfilter: TikTok schränkt Meinungsfreiheit ein [Word filter: TikTok restricts freedom of expression]. tagesschau.de. https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr/tik-tok-begriffe-101.html

Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’? In P. du Gay & S. Hall (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1–18). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446221907.n1

Hall, S. (1997). Cultural identity and diaspora. In K. Woodward (Ed.), Identity and difference (pp. 51–59). SAGE Publications.

Hunting, K. (2021). Critical content analysis: A methodological proposal for the incorporation of numerical data into critical/cultural media studies. Annals of the International Communication Association, 45(3), 213–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2021.1910061

Joshi, Y. (2012). Respectable queerness. Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 43(2), 415–467.

Kaye, D. B. V., Zeng, J., & Wikström, P. (2022). TikTok: Creativity and culture in short video. Polity Press.

Lehtonen, M. (2000). The cultural analysis of texts. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209441

Li, T. M. (2019). Politics, interrupted. AnthropologicalTheory,19(1),29–53.https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499618785330

Listiorini, D. (2020, January 26). Online hate speech. Inside Indonesia. https://www.insideindonesia.org/online-hate-speech

Mokhtar, M. F., Sukeri, W. A. E. D. W., & Abd Latiff, Z. (2019). Social media roles in spreading LGBT movements in Malaysia. Asian Journal of Media and Communication, 3(2), 77–82.

Mustangin, M. (2018). Social media among homosexuals: A new era of gay life in the age of technology. Masyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik, 31(4), 410–417. https://doi.org/10.20473/mkp.V31I42018.410-417

Olivia, T., Antonialli, D., & Gomes, A. (2021). Fighting hate speech, silencing drag queens? Artificial intelligence in content moderation and risks to LGBTQ voices online. Sexuality & Culture, 25, 700–732. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09790-w

Ponzanesi, S. (2020). Digital diasporas: Postcoloniality, media and affect. Interventions, 22(8), 977–993. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2020.1718537

Pradhan, P. (2021). LGBTQ representation in Amazon Prime’s Made in Heaven: An analytical study. Pragyaan: Journal of Mass Communication, 20, 19–26.

Ren, J., Yang, J., Zhu, M., & Majeed, S. (2021). Relationship between consumer participation behaviors and consumer stickiness on mobile short video social platform: Based on value co-creation theory perspective. Information Technology for Development, 27(4), 697–717. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2021.1933882

Robards, B., Byron, P., & D’Souza, S. (2021). LGBTQ+ communities and digital media. In D. A. Rohlinger & S. Sobieraj (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of sociology and digital media (pp. 1–23). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197510636.013.30

Rodríguez, D. G., & Murtagh, B. (2022). Situating anti-LGBT moral panics in Indonesia: Homophobia, criminalisation, acceptance, and religiosity. Indonesia and the Malay World, 50(146), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2022.2038871

Rogan, F., & Budgeon, S. (2018). The personal is political: Assessing feminist fundamentals in the digital age. Social Sciences, 7(8), Article 132. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7080132

Schellewald, A. (2021). Communicative forms on TikTok: Perspectives from digital ethnography. International Journal of Communication, 15, 1437–1457.

Simpson, E., & Semaan, B. (2021). For you, or for “you”?: Everyday LGBTQ+ encounters with TikTok. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4(CSCW3), Article 252. https://doi.org/10.1145/3432951

Szulc, L. (2020). Queer migrants and digital culture.In K. Smets, K. Leurs, M. Georgiou, S. Witteborn, & R. Gajjala (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of media and migration (pp. 282–294). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526476982.n29

Thajib, F. (2022). Endurance as queer world-making in Northern Aceh of Indonesia. In H. Yulius & S. Tang (Eds.), Queer Southeast Asia (pp. 103–116). Routledge.

Triastuti, E. (2021). Subverting mainstream in social media: Indonesian gay men’s heterotopia creation through disidentification strategies. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 14(4), 284–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2021.1952292

Wieringa, S. E. (2019). Is the recent wave of homophobia in Indonesia unexpected? In G. Fealy & R. Ricci (Eds.), Contentious belonging: The place of minorities in Indonesia (pp. 113–132). ISEAS Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1355/9789814843478-008

Wijaya, H. Y. (2020). Intimate assemblages: The politics of queer identities and sexualities in Indonesia. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3993-2

Wijaya, H. Y. (2022). Digital homophobia: Technological assemblages of anti-LGBT sentiment and surveillance in Indonesia. Indonesia and the Malay World, 50(146), 52–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2022.2010357

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21107/sml.v9i1.33897

Refbacks

There are currently no refbacks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simulacra has been indexed in these prominent indexing services:

Simulacra is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA and published by the Center for Sociological Studies and Community Development, Department of Sociology, Universitas Trunojoyo Madura, Indonesia.