The correct punctuation for titles in MLA style writing is driving me crazy

I consider myself a pretty organized person. I color-code my notes, I love a good checklist, and I actually enjoy the structure that MLA style writing provides. It’s like a recipe for a paper—if you follow the ingredients, it should turn out right, yeah?

But there is one thing that absolutely throws me into a spiral of anxiety: punctuating titles correctly. I get the big rule: books and movies are italicized, short stories and poems are in quotation marks. Simple enough. But what about a lecture? A TV episode? A painting? A song on an album? Every time I think I have it figured out, I find an edge case.

Last night I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to cite a TikTok video for a pop culture analysis paper. Is it a "short work" or part of a larger series? Does the username count as the author? It’s a nightmare! I love that MLA style writing gives us a standard, but does anyone have a cheat sheet or a mental shortcut for knowing what gets italics and what gets quotes without having to google "Purdue OWL MLA titles" every ten minutes?

Here's my mental shortcut cheat sheet that saved my sanity:

ITALICS (Big/Standalone Things):

• Books, novels, textbooks
• Movies, TV shows (the whole series)
• Albums, podcasts (the whole show)
• Newspapers, journals, websites
• Paintings, sculptures, ships
• Video games

QUOTES (Small/Parts of Things):

• Book chapters, short stories, poems
• TV episodes, podcast episodes
• Songs, individual articles
• Lectures, presentations, papers
• Social media posts (including TikToks!)
• Web pages (but not the whole site)

The TikTok Specific Chaos:
Username = author. Title = description or first few words in quotes. Platform = TikTok in italics. Date posted. URL.

Example:
@dragqueen. "5 makeup hacks for beginners." TikTok, 12 Oct. 2023, link to tiktok video.

You're doing great. MLA is hard and anyone who says otherwise is lying.