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Visual artists, in the era of social media, face the challenge of adapting their work to a more dynamic, fast-paced mode of viewership. Traditionally experienced in museums, where patrons might dedicate several minutes to a work and its accompanying write-up, visual art must now engage on platforms that tend toward fluidity and brevity. Curious to see how her own art fared against those whose content garnered thousands of views on TikTok, Kalista Diamantopoulos (‘23) collected and analyzed TikTok algorithms to find out what goes viral and why. “Trying this out myself made me realize how many choices and considerations go into making videos for a certain platform like TikTok. This goes beyond the typical artistic and creative process,” she said. 

Diamantopoulos discovered that the most prevalent videos were short, easy to consume, and aesthetically pleasing. Popular videos capitalized on other items trending on TikTok, were set to music for a multimedia experience, and featured artworks in progress. “Scrolling through TikTok one might watch a seven-second video of someone drawing and then move on. It is very revealing of the way social media is creating a space for art as entertainment and changing the relationship we might have with art in that context,” she said. A docent at the Fralin Museum of Art, Kalista hopes her findings will help curators consider novel ways to present their holdings and engage much broader audiences.