Review: I Watched Someone Die on TikTok, first at the theatre and then on my phone
Written and performed by Charlotte Otton, directed by Maddie Diggins, dramaturgy by Harriet Gillies
Review by Charlotte Smee
The week before I literally watched someone get shot in the neck through the screen of my iPhone, I sat down to experience Charlotte Otton’s algorithm in her solo Fringe show, I Watched Someone Die On TikTok. Otton is no stranger to gruesome internet content, and to be honest, neither are most millennial-Gen-Z-adjacent internet freaks. Almost all of us who are slowly approaching 30 and had a dial-up connection as a tween have accessed varying levels of weird crap, from Charlie the Unicorn, to people being axe murdered on-screen.
Otton uses this content and turns it into contemporary art. Twirling, singing, bubble-blowing and cowboy-hat-wearing through skits designed to be shockingly familiar to the terminally online, she brings us on the ride from hesitant tween to screen-addicted-20-something searching for a drop of dopamine wherever she can get it. She’s an engaging performer, and her comedic timing is brilliant. She carries the many shifts in tone with a dedication that’s a joy to watch.
Maddie Diggins directs Otton’s comedic talents with an entertaining vision, weaving together threads of spoken word poetry, silly musical comedy, Disney “karaoke” and interactive game-show-style segments into something akin to a theatrical doomscroll. Video elements projected on a screen behind Otton give us lyrics, sometimes three TikToks at once, and other slideshow-assisted-comedy. Every now and again, the screen and Otton start to dive into something a bit more serious before quickly pulling away and moving on to the next moment. A strange collection of props ramps up the gags and the abrupt switches, and Otton’s phone never leaves her side. The effect that all of this creates is either mimicking the feeling of seeing something scary on the internet and quickly scrolling away, or perhaps a hesitancy on Otton’s part to finish the argument that she begins to make for continuing to engage with the internet in this way.
Despite all of the horrors onscreen, Otton is determined to continue. She skips through each skit with a determined optimism that is typical of the kind of content she’s showing us: “get ready with me for my boyfriend’s funeral! lol!” This kind of outlook is both helpful and harmful, it’s a useful way of processing terrible things, but once it hits the point of overwhelming, it can mean we start to lose it in the void of everything else that’s ever been published on the internet.
Much like Charlie Kirk’s onscreen death, I Watched Someone Die On TikTok is useful for capturing a moment on the internet. The way we interact with each other now is often mediated by a screen or a camera, and someone willing to capture the insanity of reality and shrink it into consumable content. Kirk’s death happened at the same time as the deaths of many others, including a 16-year-old in Colorado and countless people in Gaza. It’s simply too difficult for our brains to comprehend all of the horror that is constantly happening or could happen. We mustn’t let ourselves turn away from it – and while Otton isn’t trying to rescue everyone or preach to us about the horrors of the internet, this solo fringe show is a great entry point into the conversation. I Watched Someone Die on TikTok cannot and will not be everything, and it isn’t telling or showing us anything particularly new, but it’s worth watching if you’re not a regular to the solo-show-about-the-internet audience.
I Watched Someone Die on TikTok played at the PACT Centre for Emerging Artists as part of Sydney Fringe Festival from 3 - 13 September 2025. It moves onto Melbourne’s La Mama theatre from 15 - 20 October 2025, and you can book tickets to that season here.
Images by Alec Council
Charlotte is the editor of Kaleidoscope Arts Journal, a little enby and a big mess. Their friends regularly worry that they might overdose on theatre.
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