Aphrodite-Lidia Nounanaki
Academy of Athens, Hellenic Folklore Research Centre
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8050-2585
Rea Kakampoura
National and Kapodestiran University of Athens Greece, Department of Primary School Education
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7869-9081
ABSTRACT
Social networking platforms have fundamentally transformed patterns of human communication and interaction. TikTok combines short‑form video content with a highly optimised recommendation algorithm, yet its most distinctive feature is the rapid circulation and adoption of trends. While many fads on the platform fade quickly, one enduring phenomenon has taken hold: the narrating of personal stories in the form of ‘Storytime’ videos. These first‑person accounts (from everyday anecdotes to life‑altering experiences) serve both to construct shared social and family identities and to present those identities to broader audiences, who in turn form collective meanings and beliefs around a single event or extended narrative. Transposed into the digital environment, personal storytelling acquires novel affordances that distinguish it as a genre at the intersection of digital folklore and personal narrative studies. This paper employs a mixed‑method digital folklore approach to describe the formal characteristics of TikTok’s Storytime trend and analyse audience reactions through comment threads and engagement metrics. We find that Storytime videos consistently adhere to a recognisable narrative structure, leverage platform affordances to enhance emotional resonance, and foster communal co‑performance. These findings illuminate how digital platforms reshape traditional storytelling practices and offer new insights into the role of personal narratives in networked publics.
KEYWORDS
digital folklore; personal narratives; TikTok Storytime; performance; shared stories
RESUM
Les plataformes de xarxes socials han transformat fonamentalment els patrons de comunicació i interacció humana. TikTok combina contingut de vídeo en format curt amb un algoritme de recomanació altament optimitzat, però les característiques més distintives continuen sent la ràpida circulació i l’adopció de tendències. Mentre que moltes modes s’esvaeixen ràpidament a la plataforma, un fenomen durador s’hi ha consolidat: la narració d’històries personals sota el lema “Storytime”. Aquests relats en primera persona (des d’anècdotes quotidianes fins a experiències que canvien la vida) serveixen tant per construir identitats socials i familiars compartides com per presentar aquestes identitats a audiències més àmplies, que al seu torn formen significats i creences col·lectives al voltant d’un sol esdeveniment o una narrativa extensa. Transportada a l’entorn digital, la narració d’històries personals adquireix noves funcionalitats que la distingeixen com un gènere a la intersecció del folklore digital i dels estudis de narrativa personal. Aquest article utilitza un enfocament de mètodes mixtos de folklore digital per descriure les característiques formals de la tendència de l’storytime de TikTok i analitzar les reaccions de l’audiència a través de fils de comentaris i mètriques d’interacció. Trobem que els vídeos de Storytime s’adhereixen consistentment a una estructura de narrativa reconeguda, aprofiten les funcionalitats de la plataforma per millorar la ressonància emocional i fomentar la cointerpretació comunitària. Aquests descobriments il·lustren com les plataformes digitals remodelen les tradicionals pràctiques de narració d’històries i ofereixen noves perspectives sobre el paper de les narratives personals en els públics en xarxa.
PARAULES CLAU
folklore digital; narratives personals; històries de TikTok; actuació; històries compartides
REBUT: 19/08/2025 | ACCEPTAT: 05/01/2026
Imagine scrolling through your “For You” feed on TikTok and encountering a video that begins with a close up of the creator’s face. The camera lingers for a moment as they lean in, speaking directly to the viewer in an engaging tone and saying something like: “Story Time! You will never believe what happened…”. Text overlays slide into view, labelling each beat of the narrative, as ‘Situation’, ‘Twist’, ‘Resolution’. Rapid jump cuts punctuate moments of heightened emotion, while a carefully selected audio clip might rise and fall to amplify tension. The creator’s gestures are exaggerated yet intimate, and after a few minutes, the screen prompts viewers to comment with their own reactions on the narrated event, or “stitch” their own versions of a similar experience. This cinematic packaging, additional to the content of the story, characterises the appeal of Tiktok’s “storytime” trend. These short videos deliver a formulaic blend of performative cues and platform‑optimised pacing that hooks audiences from the first frame.
TikTok’s “For You” feed shows an endless loop of vertical, short-form videos, tailored to each user by an advanced recommendation algorithm, which is guided by viewing duration, rewatches and engagement signals. Built‑in features such as sound snippets, filters, on‑screen text, as well as “duet” 1 and “stitch”2 functions, encourage creators to experiment with narrative form and remix existing content, making the platform a crucible for new storytelling genres. While existing research has illuminated TikTok’s virality engines and influencer cultures, the Storytime phenomenon, at once a trending format and a sophisticated narrative practice, remains under-examined. Storytime videos do more than capture fleeting attention; they constitute a distinct storytelling mode that strategically leverages TikTok’s editing tools, audio snippets, and algorithmic recommendation system to structure and circulate personal narratives. Examining Storytime as both trend and narrative form is essential to understand how creators harness platform features to produce repeatable, evolving story formats.
Rather than treating folklore as a fixed body of traditional material, this study understands it as an ongoing process through which individuals generate, circulate, and recognise meaningful stories about lived experiences. On TikTok, this process is mediated through trends: recurring formats, cues, and practices that enable users to tell, recognise, and replicate stories in culturally legible ways. The Storytime trend functions as a platform-specific manifestation of lore-making, where personal experiences are shaped into narratable forms, repeated across users, and collectively validated through interaction. In this sense, Storytime videos are not merely individual acts of self-expression but are part of a broader vernacular system in which personal narratives acquire folkloric dimensions through repetition, performance and communal engagement. This perspective situates TikTok storytelling at the intersection of personal narrative tradition and digital folklore, a connection that is elaborated further in the sections that follow.
This paper therefore investigates Storytime as a case of digital lore by examining how TikTok’s interface and algorithmic logic from its editing tools and audio libraries to its recommendation engine, empower creators to craft, disseminate, and iteratively refine bite-sized narratives. It explores how age-old narrative conventions, particularly Labov’s orientation complication resolution arc, both persist and transform when compressed into short videos. Finally, it traces how audience participation through comments, duets, and stitches generates a feedback loop that actively shapes subsequent Storytime iterations. By unpacking these interconnected dimensions, the study reveals how oral storytelling traditions are revitalised and reconfigured within TikTok’s algorithm driven, participatory media ecosystem.
Research on TikTok has coalesced around several key concerns that illuminate the platform’s role as both a cultural and technological force. One major focus has been its recommendation algorithm, which continuously curates content to maximise engagement and accelerate trend cycles. Scholars have shown that this “black-boxed” mechanism not only drives the virality of short-form videos but also shapes creators’ strategies for visibility and attention-seeking (van Dijck; Poell; de Waal 2018: 9-18). Related work examines how micro-celebrities3 navigate these conditions by cultivating performative authenticity and so-called “snackable”4 aesthetics that align with platform logics (Bucher 2018: 45-63).
A second strand of inquiry explores TikTok’s participatory culture. Researchers emphasise how engagement through likes, comments, duets, and stitches constitutes a form of collaborative content production that blurs the boundary between creator and audience (Kaye; Chen; Zeng 2021: 1-13). These affordances encourage remixing and co-creation, extending earlier theories of participatory video culture developed in relation to YouTube (Burgess; Green 2018: 53-75). Music consumption on TikTok has also attracted scholarly attention, with studies demonstrating how viral sound clips and challenges can propel songs, and even entire genres, into mainstream circulation at unprecedented speed (Kaye; Chen; Zhang 2021: 1-13). Together, these studies underscore TikTok’s capacity to rapidly transform cultural products through the convergence of sonic, visual and algorithmic affordances.
Beyond questions of content circulation and engagement, critical scholarship has addressed TikTok’s political economy and ethical implications, particularly the intersection of influencer monetisation strategies and platform incentives. At the same time, foundational work on social-media storytelling provides an essential framework for understanding how personal narratives function as forms of identity work and collective memory among digital publics (Page 2012: 1-23). Contemporary scholarship further emphasises the performative nature of digital folklore as it unfolds within environments shaped by algorithmic mediation. Digital folklore is thus reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which storytelling conventions migrate online through iterative sharing, remixing, and repeated performance (Buccitelli 2012: 60-84; Buccitelli 2013: 29-58; Buccitelli 2022: 290-302). Taken together, these studies portray TikTok as a platform driven by algorithms, participation, and economic logics, one that both perpetuates and reconfigures established media practices in the networked age.
Within this broader scholarly landscape, digital folklore provides a particularly productive framework for analysing TikTok’s Storytime genre. Over the last four decades, digital resources and user practices have been examined through perspectives such as textual play, visual and linguistic creativity, and material culture emerging from networked communication (de Seta 2020: 168). Digital folklore, closely tied to new forms of mediated communication, emerged as the internet enabled the rapid diffusion of popular culture while intersecting with folkloristic and anthropological inquiry (de Seta 2020: 169; Blank 2009: 2-9). As a result, the internet became a central conduit for folk narratives and other expressive genres due to its technological efficiency and reach.
Digital folklore focuses on messages that circulate widely online and examines the customs, traditions, and cultural forms that arise through user engagement with digital applications (Lialina, Espenschied 2009; Krawczyk-Wasilewska 2016: 27). It conceptualises online creativity as the externalisation of vernacular expression through networked interaction (Blank 2009: 6). Owing to these characteristics, the field has prompted a rethinking of conventional research methods, including ethnographic fieldwork, as scholars adapt to environments defined by mediation, scale and algorithmic visibility (Budka 2011: 12). At the same time, digital folklore continues longstanding folkloristic concerns by integrating elements of popular and traditional culture within contemporary digital media practices.
This study applies a digital folklore perspective to the narration and circulation of personal life experiences, a storytelling practice that has long been established and extensively studied in offline contexts. Individuals make sense of the world and their place within it by constructing self-stories with narrative qualities such as beginnings, middles, and ends, as well as plots and subplots populated by various characters. These narratives contain both explicit and implicit themes and function as a form of autobiographical storytelling through which lived experience is shaped and interpreted (Gaydos 2005: 254-259). Personal narratives thus fulfil a broader mythic function in everyday life by providing coherence and meaning through narrative imagination.
The mythic dimension of personal storytelling has been articulated through frameworks such as the hero’s journey, as developed by Joseph Campbell (1949), and through Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes (Jung 1959). These approaches highlight how individual lives are often narrated as purposeful sequences marked by challenge, transformation and self-realisation (Levoy 1997: 3-25). When actions are perceived as intentional and life unfolds in story-like form, individuals inhabit a mythological context in which meaning arises through imagination and narrative structure (Bond 1993).
From a folkloristic perspective, personal narratives are not simple chronologies, but structured life-story accounts organised around coherent arcs of orientation, complication, evaluation and resolution (Labov; Waletzky 1967: 3-38). Evaluative commentary plays a central role in shaping identity and meaning, as storytellers negotiate selfhood through selective emphasis and framing (Riessman 2008). In digital environments, such narratives extend beyond individual expression and function as sites of collective identity construction, where shared stories enable participants to negotiate social norms, cultural memory and in-group belonging (Page 2012: 1-23; Page 2018: 34-56).
Platform-specific research further demonstrates that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm prioritises completion rates and engagement signals, rapidly amplifying content that captures attention and sustains viewer interest (Kaye; Chen; Zhang 2021: 1-13). The platform’s affordances, including sound libraries, duet and stitch functions, and short, easily consumable visual formats, support micro-celebrity economies and participatory storytelling. These features encourage creators to cultivate performative authenticity within highly compressed video formats (Bucher 2018: 45-63).
To analyse TikTok’s Storytime genre as a digitally mediated narrative form, this study draws on an adapted Labovian model of personal narrative structure, in which orientation, complication, evaluation and resolution must unfold within a constrained temporal arc (Labov; Waletzky 1967: 3-38). In this format, creators establish context through text overlays or brief establishing shots, dramatise turning points through rapid editing techniques, express evaluative stance through vocal inflection or visual cues, and provide resolution in a final verbal or visual segment. Narrative coherence is thus maintained despite the platform’s strict time limits.
Storytime also operates as a performance event in Bauman’s sense (Bauman 1977: 11-16). A gaze directed toward the camera, vocal intonation, gestural emphasis, and the selective use of filters or sound combine to produce an intimate and rhetorically marked encounter. Although narrators and viewers are physically dispersed, a sense of co-presence is enacted through likes, comments, and shares, which complete the performance through participatory engagement.
The evolution of the Storytime phenomenon can therefore be understood as a feedback loop linking creator innovation, algorithmic amplification and audience participation in performance. Building on Page’s work on communal storytelling (Page 2018: 34-56), this loop conceptualises creators as producing narrative fragments optimised for circulation, algorithms as elevating those fragments based on engagement metrics, and audiences as contributing new narrative permutations through comments, duets and stitches.5 Audience engagement transforms spectators into co-performers, as responses, remixes, and fan interventions become integral to the evolving text (Jenkins 2006: 133-135). Through this process, Storytime emerges as a dynamic digital folklore practice that is continually reshaped through the interaction of narrative tradition, performative staging and algorithmically mediated participation.
This study combines digital ethnography with structured content analysis to examine Storytime videos on TikTok as contemporary expressions of digital folklore. Our methodological approach is grounded in the understanding that TikTok content is shaped by a platform logic that prioritises recency, engagement and audiovisual immediacy. Trends emerge and disappear rapidly, with highly viewed content rendered obsolete within days. This accelerated temporality complicates long-term observation, as videos may be deleted, comment sections altered, and narrative threads disrupted. To address this, the study employed proactive archiving practices, including in situ screenshots, detailed metadata logs, and timestamping, to preserve the ephemeral digital traces before they vanish from the platform (Bucher 2018: 32-41; Kaye, Chen, Zeng 2021: 1-13).
Fieldwork was conducted through a non-participatory stance, commonly described in netnographic research as “lurking”, which allowed for unobtrusive observation without interacting with creators or audiences (Kozinets 2010: 96-99; Kozinets 2019: 202-205; Underberg, Zorn 2016: 41-45). This mode of engagement was adopted to avoid influencing user behaviour and to better capture naturally occurring performances within the platform’s vernacular environment. Such silent immersion is widely recognised in digital ethnography as a valid and ethically responsible research strategy, especially when the goal is to study performative content in its native form and rhythm.
To identify and collect relevant content, we used hashtag-based sampling, focusing on emic tags such as #Storytime and #truestory. Hashtags were not only retrieval mechanisms but also discursive cues that signalled genre affiliation, tone (e.g., sincerity, irony) and thematic orientation. By engaging directly with these user-generated labels, we were able to assemble a purposive corpus of 342 videos that captured a range of narrative types and performative styles. We deliberately avoided reliance on TikTok’s “For You” page, due to the opacity of the recommendation algorithm, and instead manually curated our dataset through targeted searches and thematic exploration.6 This kind of intentional, qualitative sampling aligns with the interpretive aims of folkloristic inquiry, which seeks depth of insight rather than statistical representation (Saldaña 2021: 15-19).
Effectively integrating TikTok content into scholarly research requires treating each video as a dynamic, context‑dependent performance rather than a fixed archive. Researchers ought to acknowledge the platform’s algorithmic intimacy where recommendation systems elevate personal disclosures into shared public spectacles, by time‑stamping recordings and logging metadata to preserve shifting contexts (Eriksson 2021: 4-6). Transparency about researcher positionality is essential. Any account‑based engagement should be openly declared, and protocols co‑designed with participants to secure ongoing, informed consent and minimise inadvertent influence on user behaviour (Markham, Buchanan 2012: 6-9; Liber, Yogarajah, Locke 2023: 3-5). The volatility of short‑form videos and the opacity of TikTok’s algorithms demand robust archiving strategies and critical reflection on what constitutes “public” data, ensuring that analyses do not overstep the bounds of user expectations (Townsend, Wallace 2016: 7-10; Zimmer 2010: 316-319). Given the audiovisual identifiers inherent in TikTok posts (such as faces, voices, home environments), minimal‑harm practices such as cropping images, anonymising user handles, and limiting excerpts to the smallest necessary units of analysis help uphold privacy while still supporting rigorous critique (Meral 2021: 151-155). Grounding these practices in fair use and quotation exception principles allows researchers to balance intellectual inquiry with respect for creator agency and platform norms, thereby maintaining both methodological rigour and ethical responsibility.
Following these research ethics, our analysis focuses on three interconnected domains. First, we identified narrative themes, such as everyday mishaps, personal confessions and transformation stories, using a thematic lens informed by narrative theory. Second, we examined performative markers, including direct camera gaze, vocal modulation, gestural emphasis, and platform-specific formats, such as “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM), where storytelling is paired with everyday routines. These performative techniques signal intimacy, spontaneity and credibility. Third, we gathered engagement metrics, including view counts, likes and comment volumes, and coded comments into a typology that included empathy, scepticism, humour, advice and identification. This allowed us to trace how narratives are not only performed, but also collaboratively interpreted and reshaped through audience interaction (Baym 2010: 71-78).
Thus, our analytic procedure followed the model of thematic analysis, which emphasises iterative engagement with the data: familiarisation, open coding, pattern identification, and thematic clustering (Braun; Clarke 2006: 87-93). Codes were refined in multiple rounds, and interpretations were tested through peer review and internal discussion to ensure analytical consistency and depth.
The research is structured by an understanding of TikTok as a transcultural agora, that is, a digital public space where symbols, narratives, and aesthetics circulate across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Through algorithmic mediation, content becomes hybridised, reinterpreted, and re-performed in new and often unpredictable ways. This process reflects the broader dynamics of cultural globalisation but also requires attentiveness to vernacular particularities and emic meaning-making. Consequently, the study adopts a methodologically pluralist lens, drawing insights from folklore studies, cultural anthropology, media studies, and discourse analysis to interpret how TikTok users negotiate meaning in such a fluid and hybridised space.
Finally, TikTok’s formal affordances (short-form video, direct-to-camera address, voice-over narration, and minimal reliance on written text) have contributed to the resurgence of oral storytelling practices online. What once depended on face-to-face interaction is now reanimated through audiovisual performance. These embodied narratives exemplify a form of secondary orality, in which voice, gesture, gaze, and timing replace textual authority with an affective sense of presence and authenticity (Ong 1982: 136-138). This performative shift supports what may be described as the “unwriting” of the internet: a movement away from textual dominance toward speech-based, emotionally charged narrative forms that are simultaneously intimate and collective.
Since its 2017 debut, TikTok has built its ecosystem around rapidly evolving trends where users endlessly replicate and remix signature sounds, filters, and challenges to boost visibility and engagement. While most fads flare and fade under the app’s algorithmic churn, a handful endure, morphing into stable narrative formats like the Storytime phenomenon. This trend began in 2021 as a “tease” by users commenting under random videos with phrases such as “Storytime” and/or “crop”. Lingo used on the platform is always a hot topic given that TikTok is the world’s leading social media, setting trends also on linguistic forms. The term ‘crop’ means that users want a shortened version of the video in question, meaning that the clip might be longer than necessary. On the contrary, regardless of the video's content, users may ask for more details by simply commenting 'Storytime'. Over time, trends like these tend to evolve, and this one was no exception. Content creators began making Storytime videos pre-emptively, without waiting for a request, thus demonstrating the influence of this platform’s comment section and the power to impose new trends. They would start these videos by explicitly saying “Storytime!” and recounting significant personal events or recent experiences. These videos often featured extraordinary or intriguing stories told directly to the camera, mimicking a face-to-face conversation. Sometimes, the stories were accompanied by text, usually a comment from the comment section of a previous video, or other data to which the story was connected. Initially, all Storytime videos were clearly labelled with the word “Storytime”, or corresponding hashtag. Many of these videos were multipart, encouraging viewers to “follow for more” or stay tuned for part two, which helped increase views and, consequently, even the creators’ earnings.
More recently, the Storytime phenomenon has transitioned from a clearly marked trend into a persistent narrative format. Creators continue to post videos structured around personal storytelling, but the explicit use of the term Storytime has largely been abandoned, as it is now perceived as outdated. Instead, the narrative function is implied through content and delivery, signalling a normalisation of the format beyond its trend-based origins.
As previously noted, the analysis focused on three interconnected domains: narrative content, performative strategies and audience interaction. In terms of narrative content, creators frequently condensed complex life experiences into brief but emotionally intense vignettes. These stories spanned a wide emotional spectrum, including humorous, sad, embarrassing, frightening, exciting, shocking, or deeply moving accounts. Beyond everyday mishaps and confessional anecdotes, some narratives unfolded as micro-sagas involving near-miss accidents, chance encounters, or subcultural experiences such as paranormal investigations or niche fandoms. A recurring thematic pattern involved emotional responses, particularly anger or stress, triggered by interactions with others, often framed as experiences of social friction or alienation.
When creators recount formative life experiences such as family conflicts, friendships, or romantic relationships, their narratives gain considerable depth. These stories often extend to professional milestones and, especially among younger users, vivid school‑life recollections. These stories frequently extended to school experiences and, less commonly, professional life. In these cases, the videos function as personal narratives; autobiographical accounts that organise lived experience into structured plots highlighting particular themes7 (Polkinghorne 1988: 13-19). Rhetorical devices such as metaphor and simile further shape narrative coherence. As Page argues, social media storytelling functions as a site of identity negotiation within communal spaces, where selective memory and framing signal particular identity facets to audiences (Page 2012: 1-23). On TikTok, creators often foreground transformative life moments (e.g., coming of age experiences, career pivots) to craft coherent self-narratives in under a minute. A personal narrative is not a simple chronology (Polkinghorne 1988: 21-24; Braid 1996: 7-10), and following a personal narrative is not a linear process (Braid 1996). People begin their stories in many different places, usually starting with memories that are less emotionally intense but nevertheless important to self-definition (Gaydos 2005: 254-259). The platform’s multimodal tools such as filters, on-screen captions, and soundtracks, become extensions of the storyteller’s voice, enabling nuanced identity cues despite time constraints.
TikTok users who share experiences or emotionally significant personal moments, are often engaging in acts of vulnerable self-expression rather than performance alone. Whether perceived as sincere or staged, such content often operates simultaneously as both testimony and performance. As such, personal storytelling on TikTok, particularly through the Storytime format, often serves as a coping mechanism for users navigating emotional or traumatic experiences.8 Many Storytime videos originate from an authentic need to make sense of grief, to assert one’s evolving identity, or to solicit communal support. In tearful admissions of loss or vulnerability, the raw affect often pierces through the edited layers, signalling sincerity to attentive viewers. Audience responses, including expressions of empathy, practical advice, or parallel testimonies, treat these narratives as credible evidence of lived experience, forging online support networks in real time (Baym 2010: 71-78).
Building on Page’s (2018) concept of “shared stories”, where narratives circulate on social media not merely as individual accounts but as communal touchpoints, TikTok Storytime videos function as vectors for collective meaning‑making. Page defines shared stories as those narratives that gain traction because they tap into widely felt experiences or cultural scripts, that seem alien to the majority of the viewers, or that pique their interest, encouraging them to retell, adapt, and comment, thereby co‑constructing a communal narrative environment (Page 2018: 34-56). In this context, embodied performance underpins credibility in Storytime videos by transforming a rapid‑scroll feed into a temporally suspended, rhetorically significant encounter.
The resulting hybrid genre resists easy categorisation. Confession and performance co‑construct one another, producing a space where platform‑optimised storytelling techniques and unguarded vulnerability coexist. As a form of vernacular testimony, these videos enact what Jenkins (2006: 133-135) described as participatory culture, where viewers do more than spectate; they validate, challenge, and extend the narrative through comments, duets and stitches. Understanding personal narratives on TikTok thus demands methods that attend equally to the multimodal signs of performance and the traces of authentic confession, honouring both the creator’s agency and the emotional labour embedded in each story.
In fact, TikTok's structure enables users to process distress through narrative, framing storytelling as a vernacular strategy for managing the overwhelming nature of life. In this respect, Storytime videos become performative rituals of emotional regulation. By narrating their struggles, that range from relationship issues to personal loss, users externalise inner turmoil and invite empathetic response. The practice of coupling emotionally intense stories with unrelated visual performances (e.g., doing makeup or folding laundry) further supports this coping function, softening emotional exposure while maintaining audience engagement. These juxtapositions do not trivialise the content but rather reflect a hybrid form of digital resilience, blending vulnerability with everyday performativity.
In these contexts, a more confessional style emerges, enriched by detailed contextual references that offer an analytical framework, clarifying both the events themselves and the creator’s motivations for sharing. Such accounts mirror Polkinghorne’s (1988) notion of personal narrative as selective, plot‑driven storytelling, whereby metaphors, similes, and thematic organisation transform episodic memories into coherent, meaningful plots. Moreover, these narratives unfold nonlinearly by beginning at various entry points in memory (Braid 1996; Gaydos 2005) and invite listeners to interpret them through their own experiences, thereby co‑constructing meaning (Gaydos 2005: 256). Predominantly, the content centres on enduring personal relationships, often highlighting long‑term abusive behaviours by family members or significant others, which have shaped the creator’s sense of self and community.9
However, the platform's limitations on video size often prevents the full enumeration of events leading to a final result. Often, in order to overcome this obstacle and tell the story and details they want to, users will create multiple episodes of Storytime videos, such as awkward social encounters or milestone achievements, which resonate with broad audiences. For example, on many creators’ profiles, Storytime content is organised into dedicated sections that group videos by theme rather than chronology. For example, a series on “Growing up in a cult” collects stand‑alone anecdotes tied to that specific experience, while multipart sequences, necessitated by TikTok’s time limits, carry a single narrative across two or more successive posts.10 When a story exceeds the platform’s maximum video length, creators simply continue with “Part 2” (or “Part 3”), ensuring narrative continuity despite technical constraints.
Still, the format of Storytime videos was so dynamic that it led to an unexpected result. A noteworthy subcategory occurred, featuring videos in which creators relay experiences they did not personally undergo. Here, the same thematic concerns (like trauma, tension, serendipity) surface, but are introduced with an explicit disclaimer in the video description. Hashtags serve as connective tissue, linking these retellings to broader issues or original posts, often sourced from Reddit, which open niche‑driven communities and make this a rich repository for second‑hand stories. In such cases, creators become folkloric intermediaries, passing along narratives received via direct message or other social platforms. TikTok’s audience skews very young and media-savvy, and they value “authentic-feeling” content. Researchers note TikTok’s appeal lies in its “instinctive and authentic” aesthetic. Paradoxically, even when narrating second-hand tales, creators emphasise relatability. TikTok storytelling cultivates a kind of “formatted authenticity” as creators present ordinary, believable personas while telling generic, “relatable” tales (often prefaced “When your mom…”). In other words, the form of the story is standardised for impact. By using first-person voice and everyday settings, these second-hand stories feel personal, even though we know they’re not. TikTok users have revived “the traditional subjects of anthropological inquiry (specifically folklore and storytelling)” on the app. These retold experiences become collective lore. The storytellers are like modern bards as they personalise communal narratives and pass them on (Hewlett-Hall 2023: 48-60). This links to classic theories of storytelling as a coping strategy. Each video is more than entertainment, in fact in some cases, it becomes a performative ritual of collective sense-making. Viewers not only consume a story, they see the creator perform meaning and often respond with their own stories. In this way, TikTok’s second-hand storytelling blurs personal and communal lines and creators embody others’ narratives to build community narratives. In summary, TikTok storytellers act as performative intermediaries. They curate others’ experiences, dress them in relatable language and perform them with creative flair. The result is a folk-like chain of stories, replete with modern markers: hashtags instead of oral motifs, video montages instead of campfire shadows. The format, which is short, engaging and pre-packaged, leverages TikTok’s affordances for virality and authenticity.
As the Storytime trend matured and began to fade, creators started to shift the focus. Their personal narratives became background to everyday routines. In “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM) videos,11 for example, the storyteller might apply makeup or prepare a snack while casually recounting an intimate or even traumatic experience. Embedding confession within these mundane activities normalises public sharing and demystifies deeply personal content, so that viewers become desensitised not only to the act of confession but to the stories themselves. At the same time, the calm repetition of a routine expressed by steady hands brushing on foundation or slicing fruit, adds a layer of authenticity, contrasting domestic tranquillity with emotional disclosure. This blend of the ordinary and the extraordinary highlights the delicate balance between public vulnerability and private ritual.
Regardless of format, Storytime narratives range from light-hearted anecdotes to profound life events, straddling private and public spheres (Page 2012: 2). Many storytellers begin with a striking hook, labelling the post and describing the reasoning and the “genre” it falls into, such as ‘Story Time!!!’. They employ suspenseful music that complete a coherent arc within seconds: an initial setting, an inciting conflict, a moment of reflection, and a twist or moral. Creators leverage text overlays, animated stickers, and quick flashbacks, sometimes in split‑screen, to convey backstory without disrupting pacing. This compressed style demands thematic precision as background details are reduced to essentials (e.g., “my sister’s wedding”), while emotional intensity is amplified through vocal timbre and emphatic captions, ensuring that even in under a minute, the story resonates deeply.
Researching personal narratives on TikTok requires an appreciation of the liminal space where performance and confession intersect. Creators recounting heartbreak, mental health struggles or paranormal encounters are neither merely staging spectacles nor simply sharing private diary entries; their videos function as both crafted performances and heartfelt testimonies.
TikTok’s storytelling conventions, including paced edits, text overlays, and dramatic audio cues, encourage heightened emotional impact. A trembling vocal register or a perfectly timed jump cut can transform a personal disclosure into a compelling narrative that resonates across the “For You” feed. This performative scaffolding rewards creators who master platform affordances, prompting them to sequence and embellish details much like a dramaturgical presentation (Goffman 1959: 17-24). Yet the polished veneer does not preclude genuine self‑expression.
The third domain of analysis focused on audience interaction and engagement metrics. We collected and examined view counts, likes, and comment volumes to assess the reach and impact of individual videos. More importantly, we conducted a qualitative coding of the comment sections, creating a comment typology inspired by Baym (2010: 71-78). The comment section on TikTok often presents a challenging environment, with many posts attracting judgmental or dismissive responses. However, the Storytime videos examined in this study revealed a markedly different pattern. In most cases, comments focused on users sharing similar experiences, effectively expanding the original narrative and contributing to a sense of communal storytelling. Particularly when the content involved emotionally charged or dramatic events, commenters tended to offer empathy and support. While there were instances in which videos elicited criticism, especially when the content was perceived as offensive or controversial, this was not the predominant response. Overall, the comment section in Storytime posts functioned less as a space for negativity and more as a site of collective engagement and validation.
Life is virtually saturated with narrative, stories told and heard, dreams that become stories, memories retold as stories and imagined stories. This dynamic shows that such storytelling is not merely cathartic for the narrator, but that it also creates a shared affective space where viewers offer support through comments, likes and duets. When a story is read or heard, it becomes intertwined with and interpreted through the lens of one’s own personal story (Polkinghorne 1988: 15-21). Narrator and listener co-create meaning in personal narratives, therefore it is useful to describe the process of co-creation. As viewers engage with these condensed life stories, they co-author the teller’s public persona, affirming or contesting identity claims. Viewers appropriate these tropes, reinforcing the story’s shared status. This dynamic illustrates Page’s notion that once a narrative achieves shared status, it evolves beyond the original teller, becoming a living piece of digital folklore embedded within the platform’s participatory culture (Page 2012: 1-23; Page 2018: 34-56). Thus, TikTok Storytime exemplifies Page’s insight that social media stories are not simply shared recountings, but active sites of identity construction and social interaction.
As part of the analysis, we categorised user responses into expressions of empathy (e.g., “This happened to me too”), scepticism (“I’m not sure I believe this”), humour (light-hearted responses or memes), advice (“You should see a therapist”), and identification (“I thought I was the only one!”). These comments not only reflected reception but also shaped the evolving meaning of the narrative. Creators frequently responded to comments with clarifications or sequels, suggesting that the Storytime format is iterative and co-authored, rather than fixed. This dynamic is central to what we term the Storytime Feedback Loop: a recursive process in which a creator’s original video is shaped by algorithmic exposure and reinterpreted through collective audience response. As videos circulate and gain traction, comments prompt further elaboration, follow-up posts, and thematic shifts. In many cases, users stitch or duet the original content, adding their own voice or perspective to the story. The platform’s features thus foster a participatory storytelling environment where narratives are not only performed, but are continuously re-performed, questioned and transformed.
To highlight preserved oral features, such as performance cues and communal function, we also observed transformed or diminished traits. The asynchronous nature of dialogic exchange, the visual dominance over verbal nuance, and the reduction of stories to key emotional beats marked a departure from traditional face-to-face storytelling. Yet these constraints were not purely limiting; they invited innovation. The combination of visual distraction and performative sincerity, for example, narrating a traumatic event while flawlessly contouring one’s face, created new aesthetic and emotional registers unique to the platform.
Overall, the findings suggest that TikTok Storytime is more than a fleeting trend. It has become a durable, flexible narrative practice shaped by platform affordances, oral tradition, and participatory culture. In this hybrid environment, stories circulate not only to entertain, but to negotiate identity, foster belonging, and co-create meaning in a digitally mediated, algorithmically curated public sphere.
In summary, it seems that, despite the extreme variety in posts, links and discussions, those digital interactions represented a way to communicate some of the users’ deeper thoughts, values or their everyday life through narrated personal stories.
TikTok has brought new data to user interaction both because of its content (users' posts in the form of short videos) and its very efficient algorithm. Its most central and recognisable characteristic, however, is that it is dominated by the reproduction of trends.
Although these trends often wane and disappear, or are replaced by new ones that emerge within a short period of time, there is one that seems to remain active and particularly influential: the narrating of personal stories. Personal narratives about social, community and family life not only form the basis of shared identities and values, but also present them to external audiences, who are able then to form opinions about what they have heard. It is thus a statement about individual and collective meaning and belief derived from a single incident or even from the presentation of a more extensive story. By transferring these kinds of narratives to the digital environment, new features are added to this narrative genre.
This study has demonstrated that TikTok’s Storytime videos represent a durable and adaptable form of digital folklore, preserving core features of oral tradition, such as coherent narrative arcs, direct address, and communal engagement, even as it negotiates the strict temporal and multimodal constraints of short form video. By tracing Storytime’s evolution from its origins in comment driven prompts (‘Storytime’, ‘crop’) to its maturation as an unstated yet recognisable genre, we have shown how collective linguistic innovation and platform affordances coproduce stable narrative formats within a sea of ephemeral trends.
In terms of narrative theory, this underscores the resilience and flexibility of personal storytelling. The use of voice modulation, eye contact, and gestural rhythm replicates many functions of face‑to‑face interaction, while editing tools, text overlays, and music add new narrative dimensions. They enrich narrative theory by confirming that personal testimony retains structural integrity outside of face-to-face settings. For platform studies, the Storytime phenomenon draws attention to how certain genres can persist and evolve beyond the usual lifecycle of trends. The platform’s affordances enable ongoing collaboration, inviting viewers to not only respond but to extend the original narrative in new directions. The Storytime Feedback Loop, therefore, offers a compelling model for how algorithmic recommendation, user creativity, and audience participation converge to create durable, adaptive forms of vernacular storytelling.
Looking ahead, comparative analyses across platforms (e.g., Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts) could reveal how differing interfaces shape narrative practices. Longitudinal studies are needed to chart the lifecycle of emerging genres, while deeper investigation into the psychological effects of Storytime’s coping functions would inform both scholarship and platform policy. By situating Storytime at the nexus of oral tradition and algorithmic media ecology, this work advances our understanding of how folklore adapts, persists, and thrives in today’s networked public spheres, and even offers a roadmap for future research, teaching, and responsible platform design.
This practice therefore might seem commonplace but highlights unique aspects and new data both in terms of digital folklore and the genre of personal narrative stories. What these social media practices reveal is the fact that social media have not only become a space of collective and connective remembrance, but also a space of identity narrative construction.
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1 A duet is a TikTok feature that allows users to create a video displayed beside another existing video, enabling direct visual and audio interaction (e.g., response, imitation, commentary, or collaborative performance) with the original content.
2 “Stitching” is another TikTok feature that allows users to clip and reuse a short segment of another user’s video and append their own content, creating a sequential response that comments on, extends, or recontextualises the original video.
3 Micro-celebrities are social media users who achieve a relatively small but highly engaged audience within a specific platform or niche, often through consistent self-presentation, interaction with followers, and strategic use of platform features, rather than through mainstream media visibility.
4 Snackable aesthetics is visual and narrative style designed for quick, effortless consumption, characterised by short duration, immediacy, emotional or sensory impact, and easily recognisable formats that fit seamlessly into fast-scrolling, attention-driven platform environments.
5 Page’s landmark 2018 study, Narratives Online: Shared Stories in Social Media offers a comprehensive framework for analysing personal storytelling in digital publics. In it, Page develops “Mediated Narrative Analysis” to trace how users co‑construct and circulate shared stories across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia (Page 2018: 23-45). This work is widely cited in studies of social media narratives and provides valuable tools for examining TikTok Storytime as a hybrid of personal testimony and collective performance.
6 While gendered modes of self-presentation are visible in Storytime performances, a systematic gender analysis falls outside the scope of the present study. It is nevertheless worth noting that a large proportion of the analysed Storytime videos were posted by creators who identify as women, and that the format is particularly visible among creators engaging in makeup-related or care-oriented performances. Such practices have been discussed as forms of gendered aesthetic and emotional labour in digital cultures (Abidin 2016: 86-90; Dobson 2015: 29-35). At the same time, Storytime is not exclusive to these groups: male creators also employ the format to narrate comparable experiences, including interpersonal conflict and emotional distress. Gender is therefore acknowledged here as a relevant contextual dimension rather than an analytical variable, and as a productive direction for future research.
7 <https://www.tiktok.com/@itsgoneviral/video/7290994816555535648?q=story%20time&t=1717480271798> [All links were accessed on March 2, 2026]. In this Storytime video, the content creator recounts a traumatic experience from her adolescence, describing the circumstances under which she was kidnapped at the age of fifteen by a serial offender. The narration takes place years later, in her adult life, and is delivered from the intimate setting of her bathroom while she applies her everyday makeup. Despite the gravity of the events described an incident that could have resulted in her death, the creator adopts a calm, casual tone and often smiles while narrating, juxtaposing routine self-care with a life-altering experience. This contrast highlights the performative and temporal distance between the event and its retelling, framing the story as both personal testimony and reflective narrative.
8 As Jackson (2002: 14–16) argued, storytelling is a “vital human strategy for sustaining a sense of agency in the face of crises”. In line with this, Hewlett-Hall observes that during the uncertainties of the pandemic, TikTok users turned to these shared stories as a way to “mediate […] and cope with” the chaos online (Hewlett-Hall 2023: 52–55).
9 Find an example here: <https://www.tiktok.com/@dorkbait/video/7210856967676497195>. In this Storytime video the creator recounts a deeply traumatic experience from their early adolescence, describing how their mother attempted to kill them when they were 13 years old. They explain that, despite the severity of the incident, the responding police did not intervene to protect them; instead, they asked the child to embrace the abusive mother and compelled the father, who had rescued them, to remain distant. The narrative is delivered directly to camera in a straightforward, emotionally reflective tone, foregrounding the creator’s sense of betrayal and systemic failure. This account exemplifies how Storytime can be used to articulate painful personal experiences while engaging viewers in a narrative of survival and institutional critique. <https://www.tiktok.com/@averycyrus/video/7282798897439722782>, <https://www.tiktok.com/@averycyrus/video/7283910300804369694>. In these two linked Storytime videos, the creator recounts episodes from a very toxic romantic relationship, detailing emotional manipulation, conflict, and personal impact. While narrating these intense and affectively charged experiences, the creator is engaged in a creative activity with clay, shaping and modelling as they speak. The storytelling unfolds across two parts, with Part 2 continuing the narrative arc established in Part 1, illustrating both the emotional weight of the content and the creator’s decision to maintain an ongoing, embodied task throughout the narration. The contrast between the seriousness of the relational trauma and the mundane, tactile task of working with clay exemplifies a distinct Storytime performance pattern: personal disclosure does not pause everyday activity but is interwoven with it, creating a layered multimodal narrative where emotional expression and habitual action coexist. This juxtaposition highlights how Storytime practice on TikTok can situate emotionally significant content within routine behaviour, blending vulnerability with performative continuity.
Narratives that adopt a confessional style foreground the narrator’s interior life, inviting audiences into a deliberately constructed space of vulnerability and authenticity. As Stephen Spender (1980) argues, the confessional mode in autobiography deliberately collapses the boundary between public performance and private revelation, enabling writers to present personal truths through a carefully calibrated disclosure that both engages and protects the self (Spender 1980: 115-122). Likewise, confession operates within a framework of social norms where narrators negotiate their authority by simultaneously revealing and regulating what is shared, thereby policing their own credibility (Gilmore 1994: 54–78).
10 See <https://www.tiktok.com/@poolofartistry/video/6997948374775368965?q=growing%20up%20in%20a%20cult&t=1768547107636>, <https://www.tiktok.com/@ashleyledrick/video/7535136206984678711>. In the first Storytime video, the creator recounts her experience of growing up in a cult while applying her makeup, embedding the narration within an everyday self-care routine. The story focuses on daily life within the cult and the obligations imposed on its members, yet the casual setting and multitasking performance lend the narration an understated tone, making the experience appear routine or unremarkable. The juxtaposition of a highly regulated upbringing with a relaxed, almost incidental mode of delivery minimises narrative drama and frames the account as a normalised recollection rather than an exceptional or urgent testimony. In contrast, the second Storytime video (@ashleyledrick) presents the narrative as the central focus of the post. Sitting in her room and speaking directly to the camera, the creator recounts her upbringing in a cult by opening with the assertion that she was “chosen by God” to dismantle the group in which she was raised. The absence of parallel activities and the direct address emphasise the gravity of the story, which unfolds as a teleological account centred on transformation and rupture. Here, the performative setting reinforces the narrative’s significance, positioning the Storytime as a deliberate act of testimony rather than a casual recounting.
11 Find an example here: <https://www.tiktok.com/@dimitra_liarakou/video/7215940678155554074?q=story%20time&t=1717480271798>. In this Storytime video, the creator narrates a prolonged and detailed account of how a close friend gradually destabilised their social circle, ultimately leading to the creator’s exclusion from the friend group. The narration unfolds while the creator applies makeup, embedding the story within a routine, everyday activity. Despite the casual performative setting, the account is extensive and reflective, tracing interpersonal dynamics, moments of conflict, and the emotional consequences of social betrayal. The juxtaposition of a mundane self-care practice with an emotionally charged narrative underscores once again how Storytime videos often normalise the public sharing of personal distress by integrating it into ordinary, habitual actions.