University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Not your father’s religion: A case study of Hoodoo practitioners on TikTok

Robinson, Ji Hae

Content Files
ROBINSON-THESIS-2024.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127151

Description

Title
Not your father’s religion: A case study of Hoodoo practitioners on TikTok
Author(s)
Robinson, Ji Hae
Issue Date
2024-10-29
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Williams, Alexia
Committee Member(s)
  • Thurston, Stephanie Mota
  • Tosato, Anna
Department of Study
Religion
Discipline
Religion
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
  • Hoodoo
  • Digital Religion
  • Religion and Media
  • New Religious Movements
  • African American Religion
  • Rootwork
  • Conjure
  • Folk Religion
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown in 2020 unequivocally shaped our modes of socializing with one another – primarily in how it collapsed our first, second and third places into one another. This thesis examines recent trends in how Hoodoo practitioners negotiate their religious identity on TikTok in a post pandemic world. To answer this question, the methodology was twofold. First, current published literature in the field of digital religions was reviewed. Secondly, religious content posted publicly to social media was reviewed and analyzed. The primary social media app targeted was TikTok, with content from Twitter (X), Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit serving as secondary support. Currently, TikTok has more engagement than any other social media app. Approximately 1.6 billion people use TikTok daily. Engagement on social media drastically increased due to the heightened isolation of the COVID- 19 pandemic, and one of the primary third places people were cut off from was their religious communities. Going back to a pre-pandemic society, the rise of individualism over the past few decades has permeated every realm of existence from religion to family structure to livelihood. Some trends noted in this study are the increased charismatic aspect of individual religious experiences, an increase in the number of young people leaving the religion they were raised in and embracing a religion they were not overtly raised within, a rise in the number of young people reconnecting their ancestral folk religions, and the formation of new religious communities in a digital sphere.
Graduation Semester
2024-12
Type of Resource
Thesis
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127151
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2024 Ji Hae Robinson

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Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois