How a TikTok Code Word Is Exposing the Limits of Online Organizing

“Cute winter boots.” “Where to find cute winter boots.” “Have you seen my cute winter boots?” In the weeks following Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office, the phrase has dominated many For You pages on TikTok. But the expression isn’t about creators shopping for lace-up or nonslip footwear options online. It’s a new algorithm-based code word that TikTokers are using to avoid alleged censorship and shadowbanning on the app — and it’s proving the limits of what online awareness-as-activism can really accomplish. 

Trump’s return to office has come with numerous executive orders attacking immigration, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the U.S., a tactic that has kept social media platforms absolutely flooded with misinformation on all sides. But combined with the ongoing attempt to keep TikTok active in the U.S. — and Trump’s public statements that he’ll save the app as long as a U.S.-based company buys at least 50 percent — there’s been a wave of concern online that TikTok’s acceptance of Trump’s help means the app is actively suppressing anti-Trump videos. (TikTok did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.) That’s how the cute winter boots trend was born. Early iterations referred to heightened concern regarding increased ICE raids in the U.S. (because winter boots keep you from slipping on ice). At first, the phrase meant watch out for immigration officers at a specific location, then it meant take a stand against Trump-era immigration policies, and then it meant keep an eye out for fascism. Now it’s a dog whistle meant to attract like-minded liberal posters on TikTok. 

As Vox’s Rebecca Jennings recently wrote, there’s been an “erosion of trust” between social media users and platform owners like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — one that makes people suspicious of platforms even when their owners say they’re not suppressing content. But as the cute winter boots trend continues to evolve, and get away from its original context to something far more nebulous, internet experts and researchers tell Rolling Stone they’re doubtful any algorithmically supported trend that is purposefully vague can make any meaningful difference at a time when information is more than just helpful — it’s necessary. 

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Sarah August, a 23-year-old Amazon driver from Florida, considers the cute winter boot trend a necessary way to get information to TikTok users. She’s posted at least two “cute winter boots” videos, both of which use handwritten messages to warn her 500,000 followers to look up proposed bills targeting the U.S.’s immigrant population. She tells Rolling Stone she started using the video format because her Tik Toks criticizing Trump would only get views in the four-digits, when she usually hit at least 10,000 on her lowest performing posts. “The main thing for me is to get people informed and pressure them to do their own research,” she says. “There is always going to be a faction of people that say it’s performative. I’m not trying to profit off of [my video.] So many people are denying things, and if I can get the information out this way, at least people know enough to look it up.” 

But August’s videos aren’t the norm. In fact, they’re some of the only ones out there with a real call to action behind them. Since the phrase was first posted around Jan. 23, the hashtag has been used on 37,000 videos on TikTok, not including the thousands of videos using the expression either on screen or in various contexts. 

People first used it to post warnings on TikTok of ICE raids conducted in major cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. On Sunday, Jan. 26, officials confirmed at least 956 people had been arrested in the crackdowns, with less than half having criminal records. Over the next few days, cute winter boots represented a warning about the Trump administration’s plans to conduct new raids in more cities over the coming weeks. Then it devolved into a concern over ICE in general, or Trump’s executive orders. That morphed into concern about Musk and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s relationship with Trump leading to outright suppression. Now, video can range from combining all of the above concerns to none at all. People went on long diatribes about shopping for boots while holding up hand written signs telling people their for-you-pages were being heavily censored or monitored. Others capitalized certain letters of their comments, spelling out “Deny. Defend. Depose,” a rallying cry popularized following the arrest of Luigi Mangione, who is suspected of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. And hundreds posted videos about cute winter boots with no actual message in them — only soundtracks from revolutionary pop-culture staples, like The Hunger Games, Cabaret, and Les Miserables. The result has been confusing or downright unparseable videos taking over the small amount of “cute winter boots” posts with actually parseable or helpful information. 

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The lack of meaning across the board is one of the things that’s concerned Lee Tepper, a 32-year-old therapist from Ohio who regularly posts on TikTok. Tepper, who uses they/them pronouns, says they’re worried that people who are posting the cute winter boots trend as activism aren’t really tuned into real ways to help offline. “When we have trends like this, it tends to imply that systems and organizations that have been doing this work for a long time don’t [exist],” Tepper says. “This cute winter boots phrase isn’t directing people necessarily to already existing avenues of community support. The trend is a trend for a reason. People want to participate in advocacy and social change. But at the same time, we can invest in infrastructure that’s already there.” 

This isn’t the first time online communities have attempted to use phrases or code words to organize. It’s been more than 10 years since the 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri jump-started the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and what began as an underground and decentralized social movement turned into dozens of muted or poorly-thought out demonstrations. In 2020, the #BlackoutTuesday day of silence on Instagram, where supporters were encouraged to post a single black box, clogged relevant hashtags and made it nearly impossible for organizers to share relevant information on protests. 

“What we’re seeing now is kind of an extension of a general format of activism that has been happening on social media for at least the past decade,” says Zari Taylor, an assistant professor at New York University who teaches on social media and digital platforms. “It’s similar to the black box situation. Posting about cute winter boots doesn’t do anything to help with emergent situations in your area. So the visibility that people are striving for is typical to the culture that we’re seeing on social media, but that might not be compatible with long term, impactful, grassroots organizing that I believe can only really happen in person and not online.” 

Much of the concern around the cute winter boots trend isn’t that it could become dangerous, but rather that TikTok users participating in the trend might think that posting is enough. Hundreds of users have complained that the trend doesn’t serve a real purpose, or has gone so far from its intended goal that it’s just a way for people to virtue signal — show their beliefs in a public way online. Christine Tran, a digital culture expert and assistant professor at the University of Toronto posits that the problem isn’t the trend itself, it’s the incompatibility of today’s creator economy with real-life action. 

“That’s an inherent contradiction of trying to communicate via social media platforms. The horizons of how these platforms are structured encourage [people] to aggregate attention, aggregate time, to jump on to particular trends,” Tran says. “I’m taking seriously the earnestness of creators in this moment, who are very much aware of how ownership of these platforms is implicated in a lot of broader problematic political movements. But I don’t think developing these specific vernaculars is providing an alternative way out, because all these examples still presuppose that everybody has to be on the platform.” 

The cute winter boots trend is the clear end result of platforms that have lost the trust of many of their user base. But it’s also highlighting the problems with social media users who equate the very nature of signaling political beliefs as activism. Using the cute winter boots format might be netting people more views on their political content but it’s because it’s a trending term, not because the phrase itself has flown past the alleged TikTok censorship machine. Posting alone is not an act of resistance. Also, the underlying belief of the trend is that anti-Trump information is simply not being posted or consumed unless it is hidden or shrouded. But that’s incredibly difficult to prove. In fact, every American news organization that has a presence on TikTok has remained able to post, comment, and share information across the political spectrum. People should remain wary of platforms that seem like they’re soft launching political bias or forms of censorship. But if the goal of censorship is the control and regulation of important information or ideas, then an anti-censorship trend that purposefully obfuscates its own message isn’t clever. It’s missing the point at a time when real helpful information and action could mean the biggest difference for people outside of For You pages. 

“We’re dealing with platforms and commercially, their material interests are rather at odds with some of the loftier goals of leftist organizing. You’re performing for imagined audiences and algorithms, but people under attack by I.C.E right now don’t have to contend with imagined [detractors]. They’re contending with police,” Tran says. “And I don’t know if we can meme our way out of this.”