AutisTikTok: Analyzing top autism hashtags for creator, content, and persistence over time

Despite the rising popularity of the social media platform TikTok, only a handful of studies have examined the content of autism-related TikTok videos We extracted and coded the top 40 videos from the five most popular autism hashtags at two time points ( N = 400 videos; n = 275 after removal of duplicates). Variables of interest included content and creator characteristics, language use, and understandability/actionability Videos received up to 5.26B views and 9.5 M likes. Most commonly, creators were self-advocates (61.8 %) and used she/they pronouns (26.6 %). Content was most likely to use identity-first (80.8 %) and nonableist language (70.6 %) about lived experiences (75.7 %) with mixed positive and negative valence (84 %), although varied by creators. TikTok videos were understandable to lay audiences but did not contain actionable information Our results suggest the media portrayal of autism on TikTok differs from the medicalized field of autism information and may serve important roles in psychoeducation and belongingness for neurodivergent communities. • Most autism TikTok creators are self-advocates using she/her or she/they pronouns. • Videos primarily contained identity-first, nonableist language. • Video content focused on sharing lived experiences rather than psychoeducation. • Autism-related TikTok videos were understandable but not actionable.