Performing for the male gaze? Female drummers’ performances on TikTok

This article examines how female drummers negotiate identity, gender norms, and audience intimacy through TikTok performances. Focusing on three creators—roxslinger (Mexico), faithndrums (USA), and rajameissner (Germany)—the study employs multimodal discourse analysis and visual grammar to analyse nine videos and their comments. Findings show that performers foreground technical virtuosity while simultaneously engaging in affective labour that builds parasocial intimacy and platform visibility. Thus, faithndrums’ song choices foster queer solidarity in the comments; roxslinger’s framing and tagging strategies align with sponsorship-driven accumulation of digital symbolic capital; and rajameissner combines platform choreography with
demonstrable technical skill, producing mixed audience responses that range from technical praise to sexualized commentary.
Comment analysis starts with the creation of eight categories: a) compliments or criticism of skill; b) mention of physical attributes; c) purely expression of affection; d) inspired to play; e) mentions to the song/artist played; f) requests of other songs/artists; g) combined categories; h) other comments. Although elements of hyperfemininity sometimes activate the male gaze, audience engagement frequently privileges musical legitimacy. The analysis connects TikTok’s ambivalent role in challenging and reinforcing inequalities to discussions of instrument gendering, platform features, and algorithmic bias. It finds that TikTok helps  female drummers bypass industry barriers through authenticity and skill but warns that platform algorithms may still perpetuate biases.