Roopkatha Misra
Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts
Symbiosis International (Deemed University)

When asked what poetry is, most people will revert to the Wordsworthian understanding of it as a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity” (Wordsworth, 2003). This oft- quoted phrase forms the basic tenet of Romanticism – a shift from the idolatry of rationalism to imagination, emotion, and exuberance; from a kind of art where artists imitated nature in works of art, to one where they expressed themselves through creativity. Critics have agreed that modernism and industrialisation were “unfavourable to the spirit of poetry” and Romanticism was “the most dangerous form of anarchy – anarchy of the imagination” (qtd. in Kulik, n.d.). The only way for the poetic genius to survive in a mechanised world was by non-conformity and an outright revolution that sought to establish the aesthetic and literary philosophies of expressionism¹ and Romanticism.  

Any socio-economic or political shift requires a cultural revolution of its own. Romanticism, at the turn of the 18th Century, was such a movement. Throughout history, there have been many such changes in aesthetic production, as recorded by art history and literary theory. Today, we stand at another critical moment of change. In the post-COVID era of the 21^st century, we seem to be turning to social media and content creation as the new form of ‘Art’. Coming at the tail end of postmodernism, TikTok is often critiqued on the basis of shallowness, death of meaning, commodification of human self, breakdown of moral order, etc. In contrast, I believe that within the depthlessness that marks the production of all content, lies a strain of creativity and originality of human labour that is ineffaceable.

In a period of absolute global saturation of culture and economics, marked by a need for social distancing during the pandemic, the sphere of TikTok emerged as a convenient new platform for art. An understanding of TikTok videos and Instagram reels, when approached through theories of expression and creativity, gives centrality to the position of the artistic mind, and their capacity for creation. This paper seeks to draw a relationship between the Romantic movement and the current production of social media content by understanding both as new philosophies of expression and creativity duringat tumultuous times. They both emerge as a need for artists to re-evaluate their social and creative positions. It provides a possibility of seeing TikTok (and, by extension, creative social media) as something other than simply a shallow and depthless space. Instead, it contains the possibility of some kinds of freedom in an increasingly panoptic world. This paper uses the dominant ideas of Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and of noted literary theorist M.H. Abrams, to establish the kernel of individual creativity that is central to Romanticism. When it comes to TikTok, due to a paucity of research material, I draw on my own exploration of the space, and its surrounding discourse, both on and off the platform. 

The relationship between questions of Art, originality, and creativity, was theorised by the Romantics, and the best way to understand the cruciality of their work is through the metaphor of the mirror and the lamp that M.H. Abrams gives. The mirror is representative of the dominant ideas of Neoclassicism, like mimesis, catharsis, and utile et dulce. The job of the artist was to hold a mirror up to imitate and reflect society as it was. In contrast, Romanticism sees art no longer as simply a representation of nature but as “the overflow, utterance or projection of the thought and feelings of the poet” (Abrams, 1971). It emphasised the role of the human perception as an active entity, instead of one that passively received impressions from the outside world. The imagery of the lamp, then, symbolises an idea of art “which throws out images originating not in the world but in the poet” (Abrams, 1971). In Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, for instance, the landscape itself becomes the human mind, and the movement of the river is connotative of the movement of the imaginative faculty. Traversing the terrains of primary and secondary imagination, the river comes from the depth of human consciousness, reaches a terminal point, and then retracts into its mysterious origins. This becomes one of the best examples of how the human is no longer the mirror, but the lamp – the creativity flows from the unconsciousness within. I, it is not mere mimesis. If the lamp (the artist) is the primaryprime source of creation, inarguably, then, all kinds of creation must be given merit. On TikTok, all kinds of content are permissible, because literally everything becomes content. This rangesextends from concerts clips, silly home pranks, behind- the- scenes, and makeup tutorials, to recordings of people doing regularnormal household choresthings, videos of women in labour, and more. It is almost ridiculously impressive how content creators/influencers have the creative potential to record every minute of their lives and tweak it a little to turn it into content. Inarguably, the factor of profit is deeply prevalent here, as opposed to the more ‘pure’ Art of the Romantics. However, on TikTok, individuality becomes a critical selling factor. Artists transform their personality into a brand and hope that it is just the right amount of unique so as to hook the audience in. So, while one’s page might be about make up tutorials, they either take creative liberty with makeup and create stunning pieces of art with their face as the canvas, or they talk about their life, their struggles, and pains while recording themselves doing makeup. A seemingly simple video on how to apply foundation or lipstick becomes a thing of beauty, of Art².  

The mind then emerges as a repository of sensuous experiences, the key producer of creativity. Within this, imagination is given uninhabited stress as the key faculty for artistry. In Wordsworth’s preface to the Lyrical Ballads, he establishes what later gives rise to the expressive theory of art. The subject matter of his poetry consisted of ordinary things and common incidents mixed with intense passion and coloured by imagination, which resulted in the ordinary common thing becoming unusual and, thus, artistic. Imagination emerges as an intermediary power that stands above both reason and sense as it connects them. It frees us from what Wordsworth calls the “tyranny” of sense, bringing us to the realisation that we are creative in our interaction with nature. Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” was inspired by some flowers he saw once on a walk. Of the same incident, Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal notes that the flowers were perfectly ordinary, even a little trampled and dirty (Durrant, 1962). If this instance is able to produce one of the greatest examples of literature in our times, why are Instagram reels and TikTok videos any different? In fact, due to the wide and extensive production of content, similarities and differences are found, communities are formed, and the world is brought closer together. Wordsworth wished everyone to recollect the daffodils he saw, or he himself wished to be able to remember Tintern Abbey as was, and social media does just that.  

The question of originality, however, can be contentious vis-a-visheld as contention against social media production, since it is based mainly on trends or repetitions of same actions and sequences by all creators. While true, it also incorporates the public with the private, thus re-establishing the importance of the artist themselves. Even when users follow trends or use viral audios, their production is not an exact copy of the reels that came before it. For instance, in the spirit of social distancing, there was a dance challenge that was created and there have been studies that conclude that every single user who used the hashtag molded the dance routine according to their suitability, whether it was to do it in sweatpants, stay in frame after it’s over, use special effects, etc. So, it provides a linkage between one’s own existence, how the others perceive them, and how the audiences engage with the produced content. Romanticism, too, sought to do a similar thing when it took on the task of giving a private experience a public resonance. In the time of crisis, the literary productions of the Romantic poets were a call to the masses; a desperate plea to not forget their natural existence in the midst of so much machinery.  

For Shelley, imagination is the greatest instrument of moral good. Poetry is produced by imagination and its relation to thoughts, with no referent in reality. The creativity of the poet comes from the fact that he is free to deviate from rules as he wishes. For instance, his poem To a Skylark does not speak of an actual bird, but an imagining of such a creature somewhere above him, with its song carrying pure unadulterated art. A radical way of reimagining the theories of art, social media allows one to do something similar. Currently, social media is taken by storm by the genocide in Gaza, and almost all influencers are talking about it. As a result of the convoluted laws of censorship today, Instagram is shadowbanning anyone who mentions these topics, or certain words directly. The way around it is impressively innovative. People will shoot dance tutorials, makeup videos, grwm (get ready with me) videos, and for every sentence they say about the political situation, they will follow with a fluff line about “how stunning is this blush” or “come with me to go grocery shopping” so that the algorithm doesn’t pick up on their connotative meaning. In a time when speech is heavily censored, social media becomes a primary platform for people to find radical ways of expression which doesn’t conform to hegemony. So then, like Shelley’s skylark, these videos do not exist as they are denoted, but exist through the connotations they carry and the depth of the meaning conceived by the audience.  

A lot of topics that would have previously been unimaginable as public topics of discussions are becoming popular on TikTok. This is because the platform promotes the usage of humour as the primary method of making content. Every topic, from generic everyday content to distressing ones like depression, lack of disability rights, abuse, school shootings, and hardcore trauma, are being generated. If such difficult content is being produced, the easiest way to present it so as to not offend or trigger anyone is by humour. And it works wonderfully. There are communities buildting around topics and themes, and people find like-minded peoples, other trauma survivors, believers, etc., through engagement with various posts on social media. TikTok, for all its commercial agendas, seems to be living up to its ideal of democratising the public forum. This understanding of the working of TikTok is very similar to John Dewey’s theory of expression that he develops from Coleridge and Wordsworth’s idea of organic unity. He says that there is no spilling out of a creative potential that pre-existed as a complete entity within an artist. Artistic expression involves the progressive organisation of inner and outer material in organic connection with each other. Additionally, what Dewey does is take away Romanticism’s vertical movement of aesthetic experience which sought to culminate as a transcendental experience (especially in Blake or Coleridge), and makes it a radical philosophy of natural organicism which does not seek a ‘higher’ reality, but reinforces the Kantian as well as Cartesian dualism simultaneously as a way to stay grounded in reality (Granger, 2003). In this sense, the role of art is to reinforce an interaction between the self and the world, and the meaning that arises from that is a means of expanding one’s everyday horizon of knowledge, not transcend it. TikTok, in its constant reinforcement of lived reality and capturing of momentary content, does precisely that. It removes the ‘sacredness’ of art (which is why it is discarded as low art), and allows the discourse to take over its unity of meaning.  

The argument for TikTok as art (not as a medium that facilitates art, but the medium becomes art itself through its perpetration and constant usage) under theories of expression and creativity stems from an understanding of it as a dynamic entity that reflects the cultural epoch of the age. If every generation has a zeitgeist, then TikTok is that of Gen-Z. It follows Hegelian understanding of the zeitgeist in the way it requires individual participation towards creating a cultural discourse and shaping the spirit collectively. It also brings together all kinds of ideas, often opposing, and creates a synthesis of shared cultural experiences. The main reason why this becomes such a dominant mode of creative expression is that it was extensively accessible during the most defining moments of our epoch – the COVID-19 pandemic, and the wars we are currently living through. TikTok becomes an expression of the current historical moment, and a repository of the cultural and social dynamics of our era.  

As the expressive theory of art holds, the artist must free themselves from an oppressive state of hegemony by exploring and expressing emotions in some kind of language, be it words, images, notes, or, now, visual media. It is only through constant and forceful expression that the emotion takes a certain shape in consciousness. It is also important to note that until the end of creation (which in itself produces a positive feeling), the artist does not have a definitive idea of the end product. Their job is to emote, and stretch themselves beyond what is immediately and easily available to them. A lot of these ideas apply to creation of content on social media. Most artists generate a huge amount of content by recording what they feel and do in specific moments, and then later sift through the footage and piece them together to form a logical stream of consciousness. The process of reel creation seems extremely Romantic in nature; a mix of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s ideals. If emotional experience is the marker of creative exploration, the premise of TikTok fulfills this in the influencers’ endeavours to project an image of themselves as deeply passionate about certain things. The argument here is not to say that TikTok is Romantic in nature, because the main premise of Romanticism was a revolt against mechanisation, while technology is the very basis of social media. Instead, they both emerge as expressions of emotions and creativity in a very tumultuous time, as artistic endeavours seeking the expression of a new order. While Romanticism marked the beginning of the expressive theory in art, TikTok comes at the very end of it, in a time of alleged absolute stagnancy of meaning and expression. However, the argument for it as emotional, original, imaginative, and creative, presents it as a way to locate the human individual in the world, and make sense of the collective consciousnesses of man in a rapidly decaying cultural atmosphere.  

Notes

¹ The Romantic idea of expression is often called the theory of expressionism but is different from the Expressionist movement of 20th century Modernism. It literally connotes the ideologues of expression, emotion, imagination and artistic genius.
² There are many theories of Art, many of which would disapprove of understanding of such things as Art, but this paper is concerned with the theories of expression and Romanticism, and based on their ideologies and theorisations, conclusions are drawn about social media content. This is not to say that TikTok is Romantic, but to open up the possibility of applying the lens of Romanticism to reading such contents, instead of reducing it to only postmodern texts.  

References

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