Shadow puppetry (Piyingxi), the artistic form of “shadow” and “light”, has more thantwo thousand years of history in China. However, due to the influence of popularculture and western art forms, shadow puppetry cannot meet modern audiences’aesthetic and entertainment needs anymore. The carving and performance skillsof shadow puppetry are time-consuming and laborious, fewer young apprenticesare willing to learn it. The loss of audiences and inheritors makes this ancient art fallinto a problematic inheritance and development situation. As the most downloadedshort video mobile application (APP) in China, Tik Tok provides traditional culturean opportunity to re-express in a young and fashionable way. Motivated by thepotential of Tik Tok as an e!ective media for the dissemination of shadow puppetry,this research used the data mining method to collect the 47 shadow puppetrycreators’ public data on Tik Tok and selected highly ranked 60 videos tagged with“shadow puppetry” as research samples. Through data analysis, this research gainsa better understanding of user behaviour and engagement about shadow puppetry.This research analysed: 1) the features of shadow puppetry short video creators;2) the characteristics of popular shadow puppetry short videos; 3) the plight ofshadow puppetry dissemination via Tik Tok. The findings from this research o!eroptimization strategies for disseminating shadow puppetry via Tik Tok, which fillsup the existing research gaps. In the hope that this research could contribute to therevitalizing and sustaining the continuity of this ancient Chinese folk art.