The rise of war influencers: Creators, platforms, and the visibility of conflict zones

Abstract

Since February 2022, the war in Ukraine has ushered in a new era of war documentation, with TikTok emerging as a central platform for showcasing daily life in conflict zones. This shift has given rise to “war influencers,” a distinct group of content creators who transform war zones into consumable units of content by using platform-specific vernaculars to convey their lived experiences. We present a typology of war influencers: (1) Celebrity-War Influencers, who leverage their well-established mechanisms of fame to transition into wartime advocacy; (2) User-War Influencers, who harness the powerful dissemination capabilities of platforms to spotlight their sites of trauma, thus rising from anonymity to online fame. Utilizing digital ethnography, we analyze 97 videos from Ukrainian TikTok creators, examining User-War Influencers from the onset of the war. We identify three primary styles employed by these influencers: (1) POV storytelling, using point-of-view templates to connect audiences with personal war testimonies; (2) memetic content, juxtaposing war sights with trending memes to enhance engagement and shareability; and (3) playful politainment, combining entertainment and political commentary through features like LIVE to fundraise and mobilize global audiences. Bridging war photography, citizen journalism, and influencer culture, we argue that war influencers leverage platform affordances and user interactions to amplify war zone visibility, foster civic engagement, and shape global perceptions of conflicts. In doing so, they contribute to the construction of social epistemology, redefining the collective processes through which knowledge about war zones is mediated and understood online.

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