The Goddess Factory: Creating Visions of the Divine Feminine through TikTok

This paper is an analytical comparative study of young women on TikTok who adhere to goddess aesthetics and devotion to make meaning of their gender, sexuality, traumas, and self-image. By using the examples of Aphrodite, who represents the “light” side of the Divine Feminine, and Hekate, who represents the “dark” side of the Divine Feminine, we see that young women in the United States are making meaning of what they consider to be distinctively feminine traits, and using that as a means of empowerment, regardless of the colors, symbols, and themes they choose to adhere to. This paper is a digital ethnography that employs religious aesthetic and feminist theories from a lived religion perspective.