I am an anthropologist exploring how uncertainty and possibilities unfurl at the interface of cryptocurrencies and finance in London. I’m more broadly interested in issues of race, post-colonial studies, storytelling and money.

Similar to many, I got in to TikTok during the first lockdown of COVID. When all doors were closed in the real world, the digital door was the only one I could open - and so I did. I had TikTok before this, but I had used it only sporadically. Initially I encountered people dancing, drinking wine in the middle of the day, playing pranks on their siblings and parents. Then after a while the algorithm got to know me better, we became better acquainted. I was shown videos of young Sri Lankans living in the west getting to grips with migration, I saw protests after the murder of George Floyd and stories that emerged thereafter narrated through the medium of dance, I was shown videos made by indigenous TikTokers inviting to me to learn their language. And more recently, I’ve been shown videos under the tag: ‘Let’s All Get Rich’ - inviting me to buy Dogecoin - a meme cryptocurrency.

I felt there was something important happening on TikTok. It was the app of lockdown in many ways. It had a different energy to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. It’s to interrogate this energy, that I am part of this TikTok project.

I am a Lecturer in the Anthropology of Enterprise at UCL, and I convene modules on Creative and Collaborative Enterprise and the Anthropology of Capitalisms, and contribute to teaching on Digital Anthropology and Digital Infrastructures.