Dis/Illuminations of ADHD: Self-Discovery and Deferral Through Technologies of the Extraordinary Self

Discussions about living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) surged on TikTok in 2021, creating a “neuro-algorithmic archive” of knowledge about and experiences of these forms of extraordinary selfhood and struggle. Self-discovery and sometimes self-diagnosis of ADHD on the platform occurred through what scholars have termed “algorithmically mediated biographical illumination.” To offer a novel perspective on this phenomenon, this experimental article combines critical disability studies, existential media studies, and historization, with the ultimate objective to place people with disabilities centrally for a media theory of the self in general. Turning to ancient Greek practices of self-cultivation and self-care following Foucault, we situate TikTok as a “technology of the (extraordinary) self.” Focalizing testimonies of the aha-moment through theory-driven existential-hermeneutic interpretation, we however also problematize the ideals for a clear-cut self-knowledge through the machine and stress the opacity of self in the digital limit situation. Finally reckoning with a dis/illuminated ADHD self on TikTok, we stress that the machine is a medium also of limits and deferral, and thus of an unknowing of self.