Tessel in Cyberspace — Season 1, Episode 3: Does the internet make us gay?
Documentary • 13 min • 1 season, 4 episodes
Episode synopsis
Tessel investigates how TikTok algorithms offer queer content to users and how the internet contributes to the discovery of LGBTI identities. Researchers call the increase in trans people a 'social contagion'. Tessel discusses queer activism and the search for identity online with Jamela, Nadine and Sarah, who share their own experiences.
About Tessel in Cyberspace
Today's activists are on a virtual frontline. Some of the biggest social movements of recent decades started as hashtags. #BlackLivesMatter got millions of people worldwide to go and protest and #MeToo put Harvey Weinstein behind bars. Writer and feminist Tessel ten Zweege (25) also ventures into the virtual landscape of cyberactivism, in which she particularly speaks out for women's rights. Yet she increasingly wonders how effective cyberspace is as a battleground for her social activism. In the 3Lab: Tessel in Cyberspace she investigates how effective so-called hashtag activism actually is.