“They keep thinking, ‘what’s one more 10-minute video? That’s not a big commitment’,” Shaw says.

According to We Are Social’s Digital Report 2024, Australian Android users (between 16 and 64) spent more time on TikTok than any other social media platform in 2023, clocking an average of about 1.5 hours per day.

The report revealed a marked decline in traditional media usage, including a 15 per cent decrease in time spent watching broadcast and streaming television.

“Everyone’s got a mobile in their pocket. Traditional media is not so readily available,” Shaw says. “It’s also generally less interactive or engaging than social media. Wanting to connect with others is a fundamental human driver.”

Alisha Aitken-Radburn, former Bachelor contestant and author of The Villain Edit, says this interactivity can also lead to longer-term engagement.

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“The story doesn’t stop with the storyteller. Teesa’s audience has already hunted down the antagonist of her story. They’re even finding side characters like her real estate agent, or Legion’s ex-wife, and looking for them to share their perspective,” she says.

“It’s hard for traditional media to compete with the depth and nuance of storytelling offered on social media and key to traditional reality TV’s success currently is the drama extending off-screen.”

The democratic nature of TikTok means any creator can share their story, rather than just a carefully selected cast, which Shaw says increases its relatability.

“Traditional media has many gatekeepers, whether it’s the publisher, the network boss, or whoever. They determine the faces and voices you’ll see, hear and engage with,” Shaw says. “Social media has taken away those gatekeepers.”

Shaw says TikTok is also global, unlike some reality shows bound by a geographical location.

Dr Daniel Binns, a film and media lecturer at RMIT who also worked on the boxing reality show Maximus Academy, says content like Teesa’s could offer a refreshing dose of authenticity to audiences who may be tired of hyper-produced reality shows.

“TikToks often look as though they’re filmed much more casually, like the creator picked up their phone on a whim to share what’s going on. That sense of immediacy lends itself very well to real stories,” Binns says.

“It dovetails in with post-truth politics, concerns over fake news and so on. These are all symptoms of the modern media age.”

Aitken-Radburn says most viewers are savvy enough to recognise when a reality show has been edited to suit a certain narrative, and often avoid content deemed inauthentic.

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“We’re past the black-and-white characterisation of baddies and goodies. We want to understand the people in the stories we consume, and we increasingly value depth and nuance in those stories.”

Authentic content also benefits the creator, Binns says. Teesa’s direct-to-camera, made-for-mobile series would have been extremely low-cost, while ripe for monetising. Currently, creators in the US, UK, Spain, Germany, Italy and France have access to TikTok’s creator fund, which enables successful videos to turn a profit.

We could therefore see more people attempting to jump on the TikTok reality bandwagon; however, Binns notes going viral is far from straightforward.

“Virality is a sort of unattainable, almost romantic, mystical thing,” he says. “TikTok is a huge platform, and it’s very protective over how things go boom. It’s dependent on so many factors.”

And regular reality TV is still going strong, Binns adds, with shows like Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum maintaining loyal audiences.

Regardless, Shaw is confident reality content will continue to grow on TikTok, perhaps even eventually encouraging traditional broadcasters to adopt its algorithmic, short-form structure.

“I think Teesa could be a bit of a catalyst,” she says. “Traditional broadcasters may start to consider what the TikTok-ification of their content would look like … It seems like a no-brainer to me.”