By skyforbes 
Recently, I discovered the allure of Tiktok lives.
In the context of my country, I always thought of Tiktok lives as a sales channel — when I stumble onto the For You Page (or FYP for short), someone is always selling something, or doing something mundane. But I stumbled upon an influencer’s Tiktok live (which sparked me to write about parasocial relationships and its slippery slope), that expanded my worldview regarding Tiktok lives, and also how it changes the dynamic of parasocial relationships, from a one-sided relationship to something more reciprocal, to become a “one-and-a-half” relationship. I’m using my interaction with several livestreamers and my observation on their behavior on Tiktok live as anecdoctal examples to illustrate the shifting nature of parasocial relationships.
The Presentation of Self on Tiktok Live
In The Presentation of Everyday Life by Irving Goffman, he likens human interactions to theatre, where individuals try to “guide” their audience to create a desired impression of them. At the same time, the audience is obtaining information about the other party to form their own opinions. There is also a “front” region, where individuals control and shares information they want their audience to have. There is also a “back” region, where individuals can cast aside their roles.
In the context of Tiktok live, the front region is the live itself. In a tiktok live, the tiktoker switches into their Live persona, and starts engaging with the audience, either by thanking them for liking, following or gifting. The tiktoker then strikes up conversation with the audience, and reply to the questions posed on the chat. It goes on for several hours. I was surprised they are able to maintain the stream for so long, not because of the physical strain, but because they were able to keep up the engagement for so long.
One possible reason is that the Tiktoker’s identity is highly congruent to his self — where the set of behaviors and actions are highly aligned with the sense of self. This way, the tiktoker is able to show a more “authentic” side, without feeling exhaustion despite a prolonged period of time.
The Fan Economy: Prioritising Interactions Based on Support Given
One aspect of Tiktok live is fans’ ability to give gifts to the livestreamers — digital currency purchased with real money. The Tiktokers can then convert these gifts into actual cash, with a kickback to Tiktok. Similarly, if a fan is very invested into the tiktoker and the content, they can “subscribe” to the channel for a small monthly fee, in return for exclusive content not on the paid tier. This is the first lever livestreamers and tiktokers can leverage to distinguish dedicated fans from casual ones, and monetise this support.
Besides structural differentiation, I’ve observed that Tiktokers might stratify their fans by prioritising interactions. Thoughout the livestream over the course of several days, there were reminders by moderators that “subscribers” will be prioritised for replies, followed by “followers”. Similarly, the livestreamer also made references to specific fans’ user handles when talking; a closer observation revealed that these users have gifted the tiktoker significant amount of support, either digitally or materially.
Given the potential audience size of each livestream, it makes sense for livestreams to prioritise their social energy to engaging with their most devoted supporters. Conversely, this might also have the unintended effect of incentivising fans to spend more, or converting followers into paid subscribers in a bid to grab the livestreamer’s attention. Otherwise, fans would need to do something different to catch the attention, such as meeting the livestreamer in person, or extending help.
This is only for tiktokers with significant viewers or followings — for smaller livestreams, there was no such differentiation.
Fans are not Your Friends — Drawing Boundaries During Livestreams
At the end of the day, the realationship between livestreamer and viewer is more than a parasocial relationship, but less than a personal one — hence the “one and a half” analogy. Viewers might feel that the interaction and the reciprocal attention helped deepen the relationship and identifying the fan, such as directly addressing the viewer when answering the questions. In all the livestreams I’ve seen, livestreamers usually thank gifters and making them feel “seen” amidst the sea of viewers, which might further incentivise gifting.
However, I believe that seasoned livestreamers are hyper aware of the very public nature of livestreams, and draw a line between what can be shared, and what should be kept private.
In several livestreams I participated, there was one livestreamer who declined to share their place of residence, and ended the stream when another viewer wanted to visit the streamer’s residence. In another livestream, the livestreamer stated they will just choose to ignore questions they don’t feel comfortable answering. Going back to Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, while congruence between the self and identity keeps engagement up and conversation flowing due to the authentic self being portrayed; whether the livestreamer is aware or not, there is a front and back stage, just that it manifests in the type of information shared. In this case, certain information in the backstage will not be shared and information worthy of the front stage is freely shared. Due to the nature of livestreaming where livestreamers can directly address a particular user (in the view of others), being addressed and given such information may seem like an intimate act, where you know about the livestreamer, when it fact, it’s shared with everyone.
Concluding Thoughts
While participating in livestreams can offer the benefits of being in a community, livestream viewers must be mindful of the nature of the relationship between livestreamer and viewer to avoid going down a slippery slope of misaligned expectations when the livestreamer does ignores the viewer.