In the Heights Sparks Gender Euphoria on TikTok
How the movie musical led to a meme used by trans and nonbinary TikTokkers.
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Episode Notes
How did a clip from In the Heights lead to a new TikTok face filter that has helped some of the app’s users express their gender identity? On today’s episode, Madison and Rachelle trace the timeline of this trend, and how it ended up causing a number of trans and nonbinary users to experience gender euphoria.
Even though this is a wholesome trend, In the Heights isn’t free from criticism. As we mentioned on the show, you can read more about that in the New York Times and Slate.
You can find the Wall Street Journal’s investigation of TikTok’s algorithm here.
Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.