Cat Stefan and Other Snippets of War: Performing Conflict on TikTok’s Frontlines

This article explores the affective politics of social media platforms, focusing on TikTok's rise as a key platform for self-presentation since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022. While the platform has offered an unprecedented opportunity for ordinary citizens and pet owners to reach a global community and share their experiences of war in real time, it has also shown itself vulnerable to manipulation. The neutrality and objectivity of war reporting came under scrutiny as media and social platforms have become highly weaponised in the current conflict context. Furthermore, social media has entered the political discourse of ‘truth', challenging official state narratives. In this context, the important role of images is examined through press reviews, which emphasise TikTok's significance in inspiring political action by evoking emotions and effects. The issue of affective intermediality is further investigated through the redistribution of sensibility, which recognises the image as an active agent possessing a life of its own (Eder 2017). Clearly, the Russo-Ukrainian War isn't the first conflict watched online, but it is the first to be perceived and interpreted through popular TikTok cultural tropes. In the age of instant digital communication, war is no longer distant; it happens in real time, streamed, shared, performed, and consumed. The internet often turns images into disembodied simulacra, stripped of the nuances and complexity that once gave them meaning. We don't just observe war; we actively participate by reposting and commenting. The viewer becomes part of the spectacle, helping spread images of suffering and destruction and unwittingly turning conflict into easily digestible content. We like to believe that exposing atrocities will deter oppressors. But does it?