Digital platforms have long been understood as important spaces where identity performance takes place with networks and interpersonal interaction forming the basis of many theoretical approaches to self. Due to TikTok’s distinctive technical structure, scholars have argued that processes of sociality and identity construction have changed, calling into question some of the founding principles of how we understand identity performance on social media. In this article, we critically engage with these debates by asking how identity is performed in TikTok content in the context of health and illness. Specifically, we explore identity performance in content on two hereditary cancer conditions: BReast CAncer (BRCA) and Lynch Syndrome, carriers of which have a much higher disposition to getting certain types of cancer in their lifetime. Through using computational data collection tools and conducting a qualitative content analysis, we find that identity is performed through the enactment of roles, all of which demonstrate how TikTok’s features still enable interpersonal and networked elements of self to emerge. This article contributes to knowledge on experiences of social media and hereditary cancer by shedding light on the kinds of identity performance that become most visible through ways of sociality shaped by powerful multimodal and algorithmic platforms such as TikTok. In so doing, it also provides unprecedented insight into what content users are exposed to when seeking information and support in relation to a hereditary cancer diagnosis on TikTok.

中文翻译：

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TikTok 上的身份角色和社会性：遗传性癌症内容的表现（#BRCA 和 #Lynchsyndrome）

长期以来，数字平台一直被理解为身份表演发生的重要空间，网络和人际互动构成了许多自我理论方法的基础。由于 TikTok 独特的技术结构，学者们认为，社会性和身份构建的过程已经发生了变化，这让我们对我们如何理解社交媒体上身份表现的一些基本原则提出了质疑。在本文中，我们通过询问在健康和疾病的背景下如何在 TikTok 内容中表现身份来批判性地参与这些辩论。具体来说，我们探讨了两种遗传性癌症疾病的内容中的身份表现：BReast CAncer （BRCA） 和 Lynch 综合征，这两种疾病的携带者在其一生中患某些类型癌症的倾向要高得多。通过使用计算数据收集工具和进行定性内容分析，我们发现身份是通过角色的制定来执行的，所有这些都表明 TikTok 的功能仍然使自我的人际和网络元素出现。本文通过阐明通过强大的多模式和算法平台（如 TikTok）塑造的社交方式最明显的身份表现类型，为了解社交媒体和遗传性癌症的经历做出贡献。通过这种方式，它还提供了前所未有的洞察力，了解用户在 TikTok 上寻求与遗传性癌症诊断相关的信息和支持时所接触到的内容。