Contemporary social media platforms increasingly operate through dynamics of rapid circulation and disappearance rather than stability and long-term visibility. Focusing on TikTok, this paper argues that in algorithmically curated environments media content disappears not primarily because it is deleted, but because it loses circulation within recommender-driven feeds. Drawing on platform studies and theories of algorithmic visibility, the paper examines the relationship between ephemeral visibility, content overload, and platform communication through a qualitative platform analysis combined with observational research of TikTok’s For You feed. The analysis is based on selected examples of commentary and self-presentational short-form videos that rapidly appear, recirculate, and vanish from users’ perceptual horizon, showing how algorithmic systems shape what becomes momentarily salient and what fades from attention. Rather than treating TikTok simply as a platform hosting ephemeral content, the paper approaches it as a media environment structured by accelerated circulation and algorithmically regulated attention. It argues that ephemerality should be understood as a platform condition produced by recommendation systems and content abundance. In doing so, the paper offers a more explicit conceptual and methodological account of how visibility, disappearance, and reappearance organise contemporary digital publics.

Authors:
Barbara Orzeł, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Barbara Orzeł is an assistant professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies of the University of Silesia. Her broad research and teaching interests include digital humanities, media anthropology, sociology of consumption.

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