Refrains of Solidarity – #StandWithUkraine on TikTok

Whereas hashtags on social media connect content to a wider audience in a technical sense, the connective fabric that binds people together is weaved by stories, experiences, and affective tensions. Although these stories cannot be fully captured by hashtags retrospectively, hashtags still offer a glimpse into the contested engagements that weave semantic webs. In this chapter, we go beyond mapping hashtag-mediated discourses in order to explore webs of affective associations around #StandWithUkraine. These webs create a space for stories to be told, each with its own texture and tonality. Reflecting on #StandWithUkraine TikTok posts from 2022, we see them as “precipitates” of underlying structures of feeling. We demonstrate how associated co-hashtagging creates a present that encompasses both past and future visions of a peaceful Ukraine. Amid a collapsed sense of temporality shaped by the Russian invasion, it is the hashtag’s anticipatory nature that fuels collective storytelling and sustains hope. We also show that the global attention economy shapes the visible historical traces “left behind”. These traces, centred on highly engaged posts, fit within TikTok’s visibility logic, providing merely a snapshot of platform-mediated war history.