“If I get to 20,000 likes, I’ll do something cool.”
That’s what performance artist Louise Urwin promises audiences in “Famehungry,” an existential crisis take on TikTok about being an artist in the digital age. It is performed in front of a live crowd, and is also live-streamed on the app at the same time.
On Wednesday’s show, Urwin performed tasks inspired by what she saw on TikTok Live: eating on camera, running on a treadmill, drinking from Stanley Templar and performing TikTok dances, all while describing her career in performance art.
Whether audiences will witness Urwin’s antics outside the SoHo Playhouse, where “Famehungry” runs until February 8th following its success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was an open question this weekend as the app was briefly banned in the US.
“The danger in terms of the practicalities of the series is not that great, but also the sense of political danger around the ban is really interesting for the work as well,” Urwin said. “It’s a strange situation to be in.”
Congress passed legislation last year to ban TikTok unless it is sold to a government-approved buyer, citing concerns that the Chinese government could access sensitive user data and manipulate content on the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
After the Supreme Court upheld the law last week. TikTok briefly went dark Before life returned for many users when the next president, Donald J. Trump, returned, He noted the application’s support. (After Trump’s inauguration on Monday, he said: He signed an executive order Postponing the ban for 75 days.)
For many, what was the ultimate outage in service It became a joke. But the app’s legal status is murky, and Orwin is one of the users who still can’t access TikTok. Production managed to find a workaround With VPN serviceBut commentators on the live stream noted that the stream was slow at times.
The premise of “Famehungry” — in which Orwin is mentored by a TikTok user who acts as a guide to the hectic world of the app — also provides a quick history of the show’s origins.
In 2020, Urwin was working on a youth theater therapy project when she met Jax Valentinewho was 15 years old and had about 30,000 followers on TikTok — no guarantee of fame on an app driven by trends spread across many accounts. But for Urwin, the artist saw the opportunity Dry during the coronavirus pandemic30,000 people watching your work was incredible.
““I lost all my fans,” she said. “I basically lost all my income. Here was a 15-year-old who had access to followers and was making money from the app.
This prompted Orwin to think about developing a show around TikTok. Valentin, now 21 and with 80,000 followers on TikTok, connects to the stage virtually, from his bedroom in Sheffield, England, and coaches Urwin on how to find success on the app.
The screen behind Orwin displays a TikTok live stream, with live commentary from online users, as well as writing that can only be seen by the internal audience. As Urwin laughed repeatedly into the cellphone camera, the text she had written flashed on the screen: “This makes me want to rip out my eyeballs.”
One aspect of Orwin’s performance is whether TikTok will shut down her live stream for violating its community guidelines. On Wednesday’s show, two of her accounts were shut down for sexual content due to the presence of an on-screen cucumber and, later, a mysterious phallic lollipop. Orwin switched to real-time backup accounts.
“It’s interesting who’s censored and who’s not,” said Vanya Myers, who saw the show on opening night.
The “amazing thing” Orwin promises — as she tracks whether or not the live stream hits 20,000 likes — includes a song and one last insulting act. When the audience responds, often with laughter or applause, the Valentine’s Day display on the wall silently appears to the audience.
Although the presentation points out many of TikTok’s dangers, Urwin and Valentin emphasized that it is not easy to make an ethical judgment on a platform with tangible benefits and real drawbacks. For Valentine, the app was a self-esteem building tool, but also a place where they saw their “thirst traps” perform best when they were not yet adults.
“We don’t want anyone to leave the show and go home and say TikTok is terrible,” Valentine said. “We want people to walk away and say, ‘Okay, this is tough. What’s the nuance around it?
By the end of Wednesday, Urwin’s performance had received more than 8,000 likes on TikTok. But because the show started with two accounts, its online audience has dwindled.
“I hope the three people watching on TikTok really liked it,” Urwin said in the final moments.
On the screen, user 3361307021887 commented, “Loved it.”
