PunkTok: Identity and dressing the part

Punk is a subcultural community and lifestyle whose dress and aesthetics have been incorporated into the mainstream fashion industry and popularized beyond self-identified punks. However, punk styles maintain their anti-hegemonic design symbolism and still act as cues for punks. ‘PunkTok’ formed as the result of individuals using the social media platform TikTok as a self-presentation and communication vehicle to showcase the complexities of their punk identity. With the application of general themes from Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis, this research aims to understand how dress and TikTok technical capabilities are used to communicate personal identity, community identity and authenticity in the US punk community on TikTok. The findings reveal that contextual information, such as hashtags, and the demonstration of knowledge and experience are integral to identifying and authenticating PunkTok dress and identity. Intersectionality revealed itself to be a key theme in the research and impacted the choices made by the PunkTokers.