"Themes In TikTok Videos Featuring Little Cigars And Cigarillos: A Content Analysis" (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Little cigars and cigarillos (LCCs) are popular tobacco products among youth (adolescents and young adults). A variety of LCC-related promotional and user-generated content is present on social media. However, research on LCC-related posts on social media has been largely focused on text-based or primarily image-based platforms like Twitter and Instagram. This study analyzed LCC-related content on TikTok, a video-based platform popular among youth. OBJECTIVE To analyze LCC-related content on TikTok, a video-based social media platform popular among adolescents and young adults. METHODS Publicly available posts (N=811) that contained the LCC-related hashtags #swisherssweets or #backwoods were collected on TikTok from January 2019 - May 2021. Number of likes, comments, shares, and plays per video were also collected. Using an inductive approach, a codebook consisting of 26 themes was developed to help summarize the underlying themes evident in the TikTok videos and corresponding captions. RESULTS The most prominent themes were LCC presence, i.e., visuals of little cigars or cigarillos (82%), Music (63%), Youth i.e., young people displaying, discussing, or using LCCs (41%), Humor (32%), LCC use (30%), Flavors (28%), Branding i.e., LCC logos (23%), Paraphernalia (17%), Blunt rolling (12%) and Price (10%). CONCLUSIONS LCC-related marketing and user-generated content, including videos with youth discussing, displaying, or using LCCs, is prevalent on TikTok. Such content may be in violation of TikTok’s community guidelines restricting tobacco content. Experimental studies are needed to understand the impact of exposure to LCC-related videos on LCC use attitudes and behaviors among youth.