CONTENT CREATORS VS THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY: A CASE STUDY OF THE TECHNO-CULTURAL AUTHORITY OF ADHD TIKTOK

Abstract

According to social media users’ comments, the recent increase in social media content detailing the symptoms and experiences of living with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has led to many users self-diagnosing with the disorder. This conference paper presents the findings of an 18-month-long digital ethnographic study in which I analyzed ADHD TikTok videos and the technological infrastructures and assemblages surrounding the TikTok app, to interrogate how TikTok has become a voice of authority in the self-diagnosis of ADHD. This paper demonstrates how ADHD TikTok content creators create videos that cultivate sentiments of trust, intimacy, and relatability. These creators also adopt visual and discursive norms from other trending TikTok content, and from more traditional visual media content. In doing so, ADHD content creators generate authority by conforming and contributing to a set of coproduced content standards that ensure their videos are deemed viewable and relevant by viewers and the algorithm. Contrary to traditional understandings of authority, I find that medical authority on TikTok is not produced by individuals or institutions, but rather by content creators’ collective and collaborative performativity of everyday lived experiences, and their engagement with the supporting technologies of the TikTok app. To account for this shift in how authority is produced in our digital mediascape, I build on theories of social, cultural, and algorithmic authority, to offer a theoretical framework of ‘techno-cultural authority’. I ultimately argue that the techno-cultural authority of ADHD TikTok challenges customary understandings of authority figures and disrupts traditional medical expertise within the American healthcare industry.