But in recent months, the medium seems to have broken containment, morphing from a fringe format into a bona fide kingmaker. A channel that formerly felt like the provenance solely of gamers and its Gen Alpha acolytes has lately crossed into the mainstream.
“The velocity with which streamers are able to build internet fame (TBPN, Clavicular, etc) feels notable right now,” said social media strategist Rachel Karten, on X earlier this month. “TikTok used to have that edge (Charli D’Amelio, Alix Earle, etc.), but the ecosystem of streaming, clipping, and showing up every single day is very hard to beat.”
The logic, at least in theory, is easy enough to follow. The medium has taken off because it appeals to both an emerging set of desires from audiences and an existing set of incentives from algorithms.
For viewers, live-streaming offers a refuge from the growing glut of AI-generated content on their feeds. In a social media landscape where the difference between real and artificial has grown nearly imperceptible, the unmistakable humanity of real-time video is a refreshing draw, according to Karten.
Similarly, part of the appeal of TikTok when it initially emerged was that, compared to Instagram at the time, vertical video felt far less polished. If Instagram offered manicured mood boards, the amateur quality of front-facing video on TikTok promised a more realistic portrayal of life.
But compared to live-streaming, whose real-time nature necessarily involves flubs, technical glitches, and periods of dead air, TikTok practically feels like a Hollywood production. Sure, the video you just scrolled past might appear to have captured an authentic surprise or genuine prank, but who knows how many takes it really took to produce?
Live-streams also offer consistency in a way that vertical video, controlled as it is by the omnipotent algorithm, could never rival.
The best streamers go live on a routine basis, on a predictable schedule that encourages repeat viewership and builds loyalty. They often, impressively, stream for hours at a time, which gives their channels the feel of television more so than of social media. Creators who produce content explicitly for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, meanwhile, can only hope that their hard work finds its way onto your feed.
Indeed, the whims of the algorithm are the other explaining factor behind the rise of the live-stream.
The arrival of TikTok fundamentally flipped the logic of content creation, as it rewards hits without penalizing misses. The algorithm surfaces the best material while suppressing the rest, meaning creators have found themselves incentivized to aim for quantity rather than quality.
Until recently, that has meant creating hundreds or thousands of discrete videos, each one a standalone product. But the emergence of the video podcast, as well as the repurposing of the live-stream, has changed that equation.
