Talking Tuah; Sexism in the Age of Viral Media

“Hawk Tuah” the phrase that has been taking over the Tiktok algorithm lately. With over 9 million views across multiple platforms and a newly launched podcast, “Talk Tuah”, many wonder what caused the meme to become such a hit in the first place. While a small amount of people find humor in the sentiment, many consider it annoying and even offensive. In fact, the phrase itself is barely able to pass under the definition of a joke with the only semblance of a punchline being the blatant sexual implications. So, on a platform with 16,000 videos posted every minute, why “Hawk Tuah”? The answer to that seems to be much more depraved than meets the eye, it’s reported that the week after the video was uploaded to TikTok, there were upwards of 850,000 searches with the words “Hawk Tuah” in them. The spike in searches following its release points to the meme’s underlying appeal: sexual objectification. The meme’s humor largely revolves around blatant sexual innuendos, reducing women to mere props to validate exaggerated forms of masculinity. This kind of subtle objectification reinforces dangerous ideas that a woman’s value lies in her appearance or sexuality, normalizing attitudes that degrade and dehumanize women.

On a platform like TikTok, which has a wide and often young audience, the rapid spread of such content can perpetuate unhealthy views about gender and relationships early on, establishing misogynistic principles at a developing stage. It teaches young users, especially boys, to see women through a lens of sexual objectification, while girls are made to feel that their worth is tied to how they are perceived by men. As the meme continues to gain traction, the damaging effects of such objectification become even harder to ignore.