Don’t scroll … we’re lifting you up in prayer

Sydney E. Brammer, Joshua Cloudy & Chaitra Kulkarni, “Don’t scroll … we’re lifting you up in prayer”: #NunTok as a case study in the diffusion of TikTok as an innovation, imagined audience, and vehicle for a critical cultural shift, Popular Communication, 23(3), 266–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2025.2561814 Published online: 17 Sept 2025

Abstract: #NunTok is a corner of TikTok in which nuns from a wide variety of backgrounds vlog, meme, and testify about their daily lives. This study investigates the function of #NunTok as an innovation to be diffused, a critical cultural shift, and a venue through which NunTokers imagine their TikTok audience. Results of this thematic analysis (n = 56) indicate that talented nun-fluencers can effectively compete with leading content creators when they use the platform in ways that are highly familiar to TikTok users well accustomed to short-form vertical video. Results also indicate that #NunTok creators subvert expectations about nuns and their characteristics, allowing them to build a self- presentation that is imperfectly human. This may help them create opportunities to introduce old ideas to new audiences, real or imagined. Practical and theoretical applications are explored, including the consideration of new and varied imagined audiences and avenues for influencer reach in unusual and unexpected digital spaces.