New Age, New Media:

TikTok as Ritual Practice

Elizabeth Mears and Masha Shpolberg

“Please don’t scroll!” @grayson.bearden gasps as he runs toward the camera
in the beginning of his TikTok videos. “Let me pray for you,” he takes a deep
breath and addresses Jesus, blessing the viewer with a prayer as
instrumental music plays in the background.1

In this plea to the audience, Bearden disrupts the habitual scrolling motion
familiar to anyone passing time on social media. On TikTok, where videos
last anywhere from fifteen seconds to one minute, the ephemerality of media
is keenly felt. Refresh your feed and soon it's populated with entirely new
content; the video you just watched is nowhere to be found.

Society tends to think of social media as platforms for meaningless chatter,
places we go for a quick dose of entertainment, not spiritual sustenance.
Social media offer fleeting surges of dopamine which, in turn, are converted
into capital by high-tech corporations in Silicon Valley. One might be
skeptical about TikTok’s capacity to foster a mindful, conscious movement.
Yet spiritual content (both religiously affiliated and New Age) abounds on the
app, with many content creators implementing techniques similar to
Bearden’s. In so doing, they believe they are either actively working against
the platform’s profit-driven agenda or co-opting it for their own purposes.
Taken together, these videos offer a case study for the contradictions across
“therapeutic” digital media—the rise of mindfulness apps or marketplaces,
spiritual communities on social media, and cult-personalities.

Media Fields Journal no. 16 (2021)

“New Age, New Media” 2

While much has been written about the commercialization of the
mindfulness industry in both popular and academic press, few have
considered TikTok as an object of research to tease out the connection
between refractory uses of social media and the emergent discourse on
media lives, waste, ephemerality, and obsolescence.2 What makes Tiktok a
fascinating case study is its self-reflexivity and interactivity: narrators often
directly address audiences in videos, acknowledging their activity within the
app—as well as the limited attention span it explicitly promotes. In addition
to messages such as “stop scrolling!” or, “this video is meant for you,” an
entire category of “TikTok rest areas” has emerged, offering users a space to
pause, meditate, or pray. @pastordonte, who represents the House of Hope
ministry of Trinity UCC in Pennsylvania, amassed over a million likes by
making such videos in which the text on the screen reads, “stay as long as you
need,” while showing him performing chores around his Church.3

This is not the type of content TikTok is generally known for. Founded in
China in 2016, the platform was initially dominated by videos of users lip-
synching and dancing to their favorite songs. It became popular in the United
States in 2019 as a source of light-hearted entertainment. As users
experimented with using the platform for a wide variety of content
production, they carved out new subsections, much like the different corners
of Youtube that one can explore. There is Jewish TikTok, Fashion TikTok, and
even Prison TikTok, which provides users with a voyeuristic glimpse into
incarcerated communities. The opportunity to deliver messages to a wide
spectrum of audiences quickly gained the attention of religious leaders.
Priests and rabbis alike began making videos to demystify teachings and
recreate dances, laying claim to a certain hipness and emphasizing their
approachability.

Along the way, thousands of “spiritual but not religious” users also began
producing content which reflected on the nature of the platform itself. When
it launched in July of 2011, Snapchat pioneered the idea of an image sharing
site whose content is ephemeral—it disappears within hours and leaves no
trace. The platform became so popular with Gen-Z users that other social
media platforms began adopting the concept: in August 2016, Instagram
launched its twenty-four hour “stories” feature and in March 2017, Facebook
followed suit. In all three cases, users would be able to use the feature to
share content that might be private or potentially embarrassing in nature
Media Fields Journal 3

(particularly on Snapchat) or deemed not important enough to merit a

permanent presence on their Facebook or Instagram timelines.

None of these platforms, however, inspired users to engage with the
ephemerality of the medium to the same extent as TikTok has. As primarily a
video (rather than a photo) sharing site, TikTok’s medium form invites
comparisons to early cinema shorts. Like demonstrations of physical
prowess or comical physical ineptitude in early cinema, TikTok’s videos may
be seen as a later form of what scholar Tom Gunning has termed “the cinema
of attractions”: a very frontal type of film production which is aware of the
spectator and committed to the pleasure of spectacle.4 While the vast
majority of the content circulating on TikTok might fall under this category,
the “spiritual” videos described above function differently, and the Covid-19
pandemic has drastically increased their number. Through direct address to
viewer, the plea to “stop scrolling,” and the frequent reframing of the
algorithm as divine providence (e.g., “if you have landed on this video, this
card is for you”), they redirect users’ attentions to the conditions of their own
production and exhibition.5

One direct consequence of this is that users are forced to reimagine what
mediated “spiritual” experiences might look and feel. For centuries in the
West, this task had fallen to icons, material objects consciously painted using
the most long-lasting ingredients. In Eastern Europe, certain icons that were
credited with helping to secure a military victory or to protect a city from
siege were then brought out of churches and carried in a procession through
city streets. These icons’ holiness was derived from what that they had
withstood and endured.

By the twentieth century, the scope of religious media had expanded to
include cinema. Here, once again, the emphasis was on a protracted,
extended temporality. “Spiritual” cinema came to be associated with the
“slow” cinema of auteurs like Andrei Tarkovsky or Terrence Malick, a form
which invited the viewer into a trance-like state through the use of
languorous shots, mesmerizing sound design and a diegetic emphasis on
nature, especially the elements—reminders of the eternal.6 It was a cinema
that, in works like Solaris (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union, 1972), Mirror
(dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union, 1972) or The Tree of Life (dir. Terrence
Malick, United States, 2011) saw the film itself as an island of memory meant
to outlive both protagonists and director, as well as a refuge the viewer could
visit whenever in need of escape from the outside world. (It is no accident
“New Age, New Media” 4

that all three films attempt to rediscover and “fix” in time the childhood
perception of “home” or that Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (Soviet Union, 1966)
focuses on the life of an icon painter.)

Social media, by contrast, capitalize on “the Goldfish Effect,” a marketing
term used to describe the decline of attention spans. If we consider
contemplation and presence to be key components of spiritual experience,
then TikTok would be the last place to go. And yet, countless TikTok videos
attempt to create a spiritual experience that reframes ephemerality and flux
as meaningful experiences in their own right.

These videos can be roughly typologized into four distinct categories. The
first might be termed instructional or informational: instead of creating a
spiritual experience for the viewer, these videos teach them how to have one.
Seventeen-year-old Cat Crabtree, or @thehippiechick, has amassed almost
two hundred thousand followers and creates regular content on topics like
ego death and psychedelics. She cites a mistrust of institutionalized religion
and privileges a self- defined spirituality—one based on subjective
experience.7

The second type of video takes a more directly therapeutic approach. TikTok
‘rest stops’ would fit under this category, as could those under the hashtag
#manifestation, which provide a gallery of viral videos totaling some 4.9
billion views and offer affirmations and guided visualizations for a healthy,
happy life.8 Many creators use vibrational healing audio techniques,
deploying 528hz frequencies to cleanse the aura of viewers or
“#raiseyourvibration,” while others, such as @divinemysticz, strike singing
bowls.9 “Some may get emotional” she writes, “This is okay. Your body is
releasing suppressed emotions and healing through them.”10 TikTok as a
therapeutic platform has its limitations, one being that the app’s success
depends on its addictiveness. The life cycles of such videos are self-
perpetuating—as users grow more addicted to the comfort these videos
offer, they may become more dependent on it for their wellbeing.

Through their direct address to the viewer and invitation to participate in
shared ritual, these videos offer users an experience that approximates that
of communion—albeit in their own space, on their own time. The tally of
views the platform provides for each video and hashtag are designed to
further cement the sense of belonging to a community—however fluctuating
and intangible it might be. The hashtag #witchtok, for example, has 4.2
Media Fields Journal 5

billion views, linking a community of men and women alike who film
themselves burning sage, crushing herbs, and sealing spell jars.11 As one
might imagine, uplifting videos that provide a “you are not alone” message
have proliferated since the onset of the pandemic.

The third type of video goes beyond this kind of direct and community-
building address to the user by drawing attention to the technology itself and
transforming it into a metaphor for spiritual experience. Content creators
pull tarot cards, endowed with meaning based on the moment they are
drawn and read, and tell users they were meant to view them, thus
transforming the algorithm from a man-made tool into a conduit for divine
messages.

Finally, the fourth—and rarest—“revolutionary” type builds on this self-
reflexive approach, but uses it to create what Marshall McLuhan would have
called an “anti-environment,” an object or a situation that unmasks the inner
workings of the medium.12 Like the pioneering works of Garnet Hertz and
other new media artists, they strive to create a space for alternative
ideologies through conscious re-design.13 One (rather naïve) example is a
video titled ‘TikTok is anti-capitalist,’ where creator @paik4president
explains that TikTok encourages not just replicating meme formats, but also
reusing sounds and copying dance trends in a way that most other digital
platforms, such as YouTube or Instagram, discourage or even ban, thereby
creating a culture of sharing that rebels against the principle of ownership
inherent to capitalism.14

A more sophisticated example would be a popular video by
@goddessincarnated, which uses the looping feature to represent the
process of reincarnation.15 The creator-protagonist dies, but out of their deep
concern for the state of the world, is sent back on a mission to bring “light”
and teach others the way, presumably both on- and off-platform. In addition
to its “spiritual” content, the video becomes an allegory for the life, death, and
rebirth of similar videos and the constant flux of the platform. Although such
videos are few and far between, they provide a glimmer of hope and,
perhaps, a way forward.

In some ways the vision of spirituality these videos offer is not so different
from what came before. The power of religious ritual, be it receiving
communion in a Catholic church or plunging into Tarkovsky’s world in a
darkened theater, has always been predicated on its “syncing” quality: its
“New Age, New Media” 6

ability to bring large, anonymous and heterogeneous (young and old, rich
and poor) crowds together so that for a brief moment they move and feel as
one. Spiritual TikTok still offers users this opportunity to feel themselves
“aligning” with countless, shadowy others. What’s changed is that users seem
to be comfortable with the process occurring in a much more staggered,
chain reaction-like way, and that “liveness” is no longer a prime
consideration.

Indeed, the times seem “out of joint,” to borrow Shakespeare’s phrase. On the
one hand, this newest of technologies is being used to revive some of the
oldest, ancestral practices with much of the “spiritual” but not religiously
affiliated content a hodge-podge of “Eastern” beliefs and pagan practices. On
the other hand, the constant refreshing of content on the app serves to
establish a kind of trust: users believe that the videos they are watching are
recent, created by people who share a comforting proximity to them if not in
place, then at least in time.

Another surprising continuity is the way in which the long-ranging debate
about the relationship between spiritual practice and political
transformation carries over into the digital sphere. Echoes of Marx’s
pronouncement that “religion… is the opium of the people” reverberate in
contemporary fears that users might find the content of these videos so
comforting and addictive that they will be disincentivized from seeking out
systemic change in the real world.16 Moreover, the first three types of video
give the impression that we are all being swept up by one great tidal wave,
leaving users with little to no agency. This is one of the looming threats
behind the lack of unification in the “spiritual but not religious” movement.
Without a framework to translate spirituality into a moral code or ethical
imperative, spiritual experimenters run the risk of continuing to operate
within, and contributing to, the normative social order. This risk is only
heightened by digital platforms’ complicity with consumer-capitalism,
algorithmic bias, and the creation of echo-chambers.

At the same time, a less direct or perhaps less intentional consequence of
“spiritual TikTok” is that it is encouraging a much broader subset of users to
begin thinking about the life span of the media they consume on a daily basis.
Thus far, these videos have consistently drawn users’ attention to the formal
possibilities (looping) and constraints (ephemerality) of the platform, as well
as the means by which they are delivered (the algorithm) and the users’ own
behavior (scrolling, distracted viewing). One can only imagine what
Media Fields Journal 7

interesting results they might produce were they also to adopt a more
ecological approach, exploring the materiality (the hardware as well as the
software) underpinning their own creation—especially when it comes to the
final stages of the life cycle. Perhaps here, “spiritual TikTok” could offer us a
way out of the recalcitrant binaries of new media, a “third way” beyond the
durable/disposable and material/virtual divides by granting us visions of
intentional ephemerality and productive, nourishing obsolescence.

Notes

1 Grayson Bearden (@grayson.bearden), “WAIT... let me pray for you.” TikTok, March 8,
2020, www.tiktok.com/@grayson.bearden/video/6801845316523019526?lang=en.
2 For more on the commercialization of the mindfulness industry, see: Anãlayo Bhikku,
“The Myth of McMindfulness,” Mindfulness 11 (2020): 472–479; Ronald E. Purser,
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (London:
Watkins Media Ltd., 2019); Terry Hyland, “McDonaldizing Spirituality: Mindfulness,
Education, and Consumerism,” Journalism of Transformative Education 15, no. 4 (2017):
334–356; Ronald Purser and David Loy, “Beyond McMindfulness,” The Huffington Post,
August 31, 2013, www.huffpost.com/entry/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289.
3 As of the publication of this essay, @pastordone had deleted his account citing that some
of the views expressed are not reflective of, and not endorsed by, the entire community
and board of his church.
4 Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-
Garde,” Wide Angle 8, no. 3–4 (1986): 63–70.
5 Dionne Ruff-Sloan, “Just be,” TikTok, April 9, 2020, vm.tiktok.com/ZMewN86am/.
6 See, among others, on Tarkovsky: Nariman Skakov, The Cinema of Tarkovsky: Labyrinths
of Space and Time (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012) and Robert Bird, Andrei
Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema (London: Reaktion Books, 2008). On Terrence Malick,
see: Robert Sinnerbrink, Terrence Malick: Filmmaker and Philosopher (London:
Bloomsbury, 2019) and Hannah Patterson, The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic
Visions of America (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2007).
7 Cat Crabtree (@thehippiechick), “Not bashing any religion or beliefs, just my point of
view,” TikTok, April 20, 2020,
www.tiktok.com/@thehippiechick/video/6817983933670640901?source=h5_m.
8 #Manifestation, “What are you manifesting?”, TikTok,
www.tiktok.com/tag/manifestation.
9 #raiseyourvibration, TikTok, www.tiktok.com/tag/raiseyourvibration.
10 Kehlsie Jayne (@the.divinemystic), “Let it heal you as you please,” TikTok, April 12,
2020, www.tiktok.com/@the.divinemystic/video/6814998028886314245?lang=en.
11 #witchtok, “Here’s to everyone feeling a bit witchy,” TikTok,
www.tiktok.com/tag/witchtok.
12 In The Medium is the Massage, McLuhan writes: “Environments are not passive
wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. The groundrules,
“New Age, New Media” 8

pervasive structures, and over-all patterns of environments elude easy perception. Anti-
environments, or countersituations made by artists, provide means of direct attention
and enable us to see and understand more clearly.” Marshall McLuhan, with Quentin
Fiore, The Medium is the Massage (New York: Batam Books, Inc., 1967), 68.
13 Garnet Hertz is a practicing artist and the Canada Research Chair in Design and Media
Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. For his professional website, see:
www.conceptlab.com. Many of his works are featured on his Vimeo channel:
www.vimeo.com/videoupload.
14 @paikforpresident, “We are living in digital socialism,” TikTok, April 10, 2020,
www.tiktok.com/@paik4president/video/6814115899503643910.
15 @goddessincarnated, “POV: You died suddenly before realizing your purpose,” TikTok,
April 14, 2020,
www.tiktok.com/@goddessincarnated/video/6815757657853414662.
16 Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,”
proofed and corrected by Andy Blunden and Matthew Carmody, Deutsch-Französische
Jahrbücher, 7 & 10 (February 1844), Marxists Internet Archive, accessed May 27, 2021,
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm.

Elizabeth Mears is a recent graduate of Wellesley College, where she studied
Cinema and Media Studies and Religion. She is now a brand strategist based
between the US and the UK.

Masha Shpolberg is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of
North Carolina—Wilmington. Her research focuses on eco-cinema, women’s
cinema, and the evolution of documentary film form.