14

There ’ s no doubt that TikTok is a social media phenomenon that ’ s taken the world by storm in a truly unique way . But there ’ s also practitioners who ’ ve decided to share their craft on the app . It ’ s called # WitchTok , and it ’ s one of the app ’ s biggest successes , with over 10 billion views to date , a truly staggering number .

A sense of community

For Mars Nicoli , a Londonbased MA Film Practices student , WitchTok is a huge community . “ It ’ s people sharing their spiritual practices and tips online ,” he says . Witches have always carved out their own spaces online , from online forums of the early 2000s to Tumblr , but WitchTok is a newer way to share information about the craft through short videos .

“ It ’ s a lot more digestible ,” says Arran Olk , a poet and shaman . “ A lot of the older writing is very dense , very wordy , deliberately , to keep people out .” Knowledge of witchcraft was traditionally gatekept , with reliable information difficult to find . WitchTok

is reversing that , with content available for everyone to see .

The lockdowns of the past year have caused people to be introspective and research witchcraft as a way to find themselves . Azize Sousami , a dancer , says “ the connection of finding each on WitchTok ” is something truly special . “ It ’ s like you ’ re in a very nice , peaceful pond ,” they say .

Content from the tag can appear on a user ’ s ‘ For You Page ’, using an algorithm that detects your interests , which has sparked a journey for many new practitioners . That was the case for Georgia Hunter , a classics graduate . “ I downloaded TikTok in the first place because of WitchTok ,” she says . “ I was at square zero . I knew nothing .”

The success behind it

The # WitchTok tag gains around 40 million views per day . “ Most of those views are from people neutral or vaguely interested and people who think , ‘ what the hell is this ?’” according to Georgia .

TikTok has an especially young audience , with over a quarter of users in the UK aged 18-24 . The success of WitchTok is likely because of this young age , as younger people seem to be turning away from organised religion .

Ali Young , an academic who specialises in Shamanism and Wicca , says that Wicca and witchcraft offer suggestions on how to live mindfully rather than enforcing a set of strict rules . “ It becomes more possible to be good and do good because you ’ re not turning yourself inside out with guilt ,” she says .

The desire for a constant stream of content has also helped TikTok ’ s success , with an endless number of videos across millions of different tags . Arran believes that this desire mixed with the decrease in organised religion is “ the coming together of two separate phenomena ” that makes WitchTok so successful .

The 21st century

In a time that ’ s been anything but normal , witchcraft has