Abstract
Ballet culture has traditionally consisted of thin White bodies, heteronormative and patriarchal depictions of youthful femininity, and authoritarian pedagogy. Recently, discourse on social media has aimed to (re)story such traditional ballet norms. TikTok is a social media platform specializing in short form videos with over 6.7 billion global downloads as of 2025. We downloaded 50 videos posted to #BalletTok at three time points over a five-month period (150 videos), and 10 comments from each video. Using critical content analysis and narrative thematic analysis, three themes were constructed which explored how traditional ballet narratives are currently upheld and critiqued on TikTok through videos created by dancers themselves. In the first theme, Behind the Curtain, TikTok was used to share stories of common humanity, particularly showcasing the silly, ‘unflattering’, and physically painful aspects of ballet training that are often hidden from traditional audiences. In the second theme, Rewriting the Ending, dancers shared explicit counter-stories to traditional ballet narratives, such as encouraging healthy eating, starting ballet training in adulthood, and representations of LGBTQ+ and racialized dancers. However, in the third theme, A Large (Digital) Stage, TikTok served as a space for intense visibility for dancers. Posts that went viral often received admiration for embodying ballet ideals but also faced harmful critical and envious comments. These findings illustrate how TikTok functions as a space where small, everyday stories are actively working to reshape dominant cultural narratives in ballet, while simultaneously amplifying the pressures of an already highly scrutinized and idealized art form.
