Kurt: Ursula, now that I have you here, I need you to answer this for me: As of April 2021, are straight people okay?
Ursula: I regret to inform you—not that you’ll be surprised—that no, we definitely are not. You know that old bigoted chestnut about people’s sexual orientation being a choice? Buddy, I WISH. Every damn day I wish I could abandon the hetero life. Not because I don’t find men attractive (ugh, I really, really do), but because we, as a people, are so embarrassing.
Kurt: I hear if you watch Lil Nas X’s latest video, it’ll turn you into both a gay and a Satan worshipper, FYI.
Ursula: Oh thank god. I’m READY.
This month we’re talking about all the ways that people play out their marriages online. To be clear, this issue is mostly about the way couples on TikTok, but it’s a phenomenon that goes way back. We’ve all known couples with a shared Facebook account, or the Instagram mom whose husband occasionally shows up in her impeccably edited photos, looking not unlike a plain baked potato. Perhaps nothing better embodied this phenomenon in the mid-2000s than mommy blogs, which usually featured a stunning white woman basking in the glory of her home and family while her husband sort of hovered awkwardly in the background. The way couples live out their relationships on the internet has fascinated me for years.
A few months ago I finally downloaded TikTok, and now many of the hours that I should be sleeping I instead spend curled up in bed, dead-eyed, staring into my phone and giggling quietly in the dark (JD might argue that the giggling is not as quiet as I think it is.) This damn app is so addictive, and the content never stops coming.
Kurt: Since I am an Old™ I only have passing knowledge of TikTok from people posting their favorites on Twitter and Instagram. But I am intrigued that there is this whole world of performative marriage videos on an app that I mainly think of as for the Youngsters™.
Ursula: Based on how funny and creative they are, I feel strongly that the kids are alright. But what I want to talk about is the aggressively hetero couples content on TikTok. Kurt, it’s inescapable, and so much of it is based on hetero culture’s worst, most toxic characteristics. Jealous, insecure husbands? TikTok’s got ’em. Irritable, passive aggressive wives? You bet. Gendered cliches go unchallenged—even celebrated—and people EAT IT UP. (Note: I’ll be using “husband” and “wife” throughout this piece, but it applies to unmarried couples, too!)
There are a handful of TikTok trends we’ll focus on here, the first being prank videos. Some of them are genuinely funny and sweet. But then others are like: “here’s how my husband reacts when I tell him I’m going to hang out with my new guy friend,” and then guess what, the husband is a jealous ass about it, and I guess we’re supposed to be like HAHA, GOOD STUFF! MEN AND WOMEN CANNOT BE FRIENDS!
Kurt: THEN WHAT DOES THAT MAKE US, URSULA?!
Ursula: Either secret lovers or mortal enemies. The jury’s still out.
Kurt: I think we both agree that pranks are the worst. Maybe it’s because I have long-standing trust issues, and I get that playful pranking is part of some couples’ lives, but most of the ones I see are just mean-spirited. If Gil ever started pranking me, I would question the stability of our relationship! As an aside, I also hate it when people prank their pets. Way to punch down on creatures that give us unconditional love and loyalty, human race!
But all pranks aside, I think most couples participate in some playful ribbing of each other. Gil and I don’t typically engage in it—instead we’re just delightfully weird with each other—but I think it’s natural for most couples? And I think it’s also apparent when both partners are into the playfulness, and when they’re not. Sometimes playful ribbing comes off as just mean. And in some of the clips we watched, TikTok couples run the gamut.
Ursula: Yes, that’s the second trend I wanted to get into. Like you say, a lot of this stuff is really good—like when couples wear each other’s clothes and imitate each other, or come up with silly ways to greet each other, where they’re both giggling and you can tell they’re having fun with it. But it’s also very easy to tell when only one half of the couple is in on the fun.
There’s also the question of how teasing from your partner feels when you’re alone versus when you’re in mixed company or know that you’re being recorded. JD and I love finding silly ways to get under each other’s skin, but we take care not to overdo it in front of other people. I’ve just been at one too many parties where I had to witness a couples’ teasing morph into barely-controlled rage at one another. It’s so obvious and awkward.
Kurt: I haven’t seen that much of The Office, but I’ve seen that episode and this gif sends me. I’ve known many couples whose interactions with each other made me squirm. And maybe it’s just because I’m not part of that dynamic. Maybe I don’t get their vibe. But it will always boggle my mind when one partner seems actively shitty to the other (in my view) and it’s just taken as normal.
Ursula: We get to watch the glorious build-up and catastrophic ending of celebrity romances all the time (Bennifer, anyone? That one Kardashian who was married for 19 days?), and it’s fascinating the way it plays out among social media influencers, too. A very TikTok-famous couple whose account relied heavily on “pranks” and borderline meanness recently separated, and I felt a combination of “yeah, that makes sense,” and “whyyyy did you do this to yourselves in the first place?”
Kurt: I have watched one of their videos, and it is no wonder they’re now separated. I noticed this trend with some other married couple accounts, and all I can say is that passive aggressive “joking” about your spouse isn’t reserved for straight couples. Gay couples can be just as mean!
Ursula: Yup. It’s reminiscent of Mitchell and Cam from Modern Family, who were kind of a watershed moment as far as LGBTQ representation on TV, but who bummed me out because their relationship was so heavily based on sniping at each other. That kind of performance is ripe for comedy, sure, but there’s a reaaaaaally fine line between good-natured teasing and outright contempt.
The ugliest category of Performative TikTok Marriage I want to talk about—before we get to talking about the content we LOVE—is the upsettingly oblivious stuff. The woman who makes a video of herself joking about all the things her boyfriend won’t “let” her do. The man who throws a fit when his wife dares to wear something sexy out of the house without him. At that point, I don’t care if the wife realizes what cliches she’s perpetuating by joking about how awful her husband is; I just want her to get far, far away from her at-best insecure, at-worst abusive partner. Even if the scene is staged (which much of TikTok’s content is, to be fair), I just have a baseline reaction of “girl, run.”
Kurt: What’s surprising to me is that these are couples younger than us (for the most part) and they’re still playing out the same problematic dynamics we’ve been actively trying to fight against. Even if some of these couples are “joking,” it’s not obvious to most people, and it’s ultimately reasserting the foxy lady/baked potato man stereotypes.
Ursula: Yes! It makes me realize that, even with all the progress and influence that feminism has had through the decades, in some ways our collective understanding of gender dynamics hasn't really budged. Even really mild, sweet videos of husbands bringing their wives coffee or whatever garner these fawning responses that remind me of how low our standards are for men. I just want to take every 13-year-old girl aside and remind her that acts of kindness from a partner should be her baseline expectation, not an unattainable dream.
On the other hand, there are some couples who manage to be fresh, funny, and not cringey at all! This couple seems like they are true friends and have a good time together. I also want to emphasize that I’ve done a LOT of judging in this issue, but I’ve also posted plenty of my own “hahaha, my silly husband” stuff on social before. So why do I recoil from so much of it? What makes the difference between a charming, funny, sweet ~look how cute our marriage is~ post and a gross one?
Kurt: I think it comes back to what we mentioned earlier: you can tell when a couple is performing their relationship. Most of us have experience with this in our own social and familial circles, but now there are couples literally performing their relationships for views.
But in my TikTok searching, I’ve found some really great polyamorous couples who are talking all about what it’s like to be in a poly relationship. Some of the accounts are definitely more of the “wow isn’t having two girlfriends SO HOT” variety—also what I would consider performative polyamory. But I’ve found just as many that are of genuine poly couples, and it makes my cold, jaded, heart swell.
Ursula: YES! The visibility aspect is huge—I love that people can get online and see people who look like them, live like them, or help them realize that there are other options out there. For every white-bread couple on TikTok acting like they invented marriage, there are a dozen smart, hilarious people living out queer, fat, disabled, poly, trans, interracial love online. It’s truly the best, and while these accounts don’t exist for the express purpose of “educating” anyone, I’ve learned so much anyway. (It’s a tangent, but this dumb site has made me feel more comfortable with and proud of my body than any Instagram or Tumblr or women’s magazine ever did.)
Okay, Kurt, before we go, I have one question—if you had to get on TikTok with Gil and make some kind of guaranteed-to-go-viral video, what would you make? Me, I’m somewhat seriously considering buying The TikTok Leggings.
Kurt: Oh lord, those leggings! I don’t want to brag, but if Gil wore those leggings, his ass would be unstoppable.
As far as us creating videos, I’m not sure, I think we would do some weird lipsynching thing, or maybe those cleverly edited videos where it looks as if you instantly change outfits. Then again, we are renovating our new house, so maybe there’s something to that?
Ursula: I think you’re onto something. Recently JD had a dream that we moved to a remote Canadian island, bought an old farmhouse, and became internet famous by documenting our renovations and new bucolic lifestyle. I was like, anytime you want to make that dream a reality is okay by me.
Kurt: After this year, that sounds like a fantastic idea. Get me as far away from other people as possible, but remain entirely Online so I can dead-eye scroll, but in nature!
Ursula: Friends! Do you love TikTok? Are you mystified by it? ARE YOU ON IT? Drop your thoughts in the comments!