Risa Tisa’s ‘Maine Kiske Shaadi Ki’ TikToks are like an audiobook

TikTok’s latest viral superstar is Reesa Teesa, a Georgia woman who posted 50 videos — each less than 10 minutes long — chronicling her tumultuous relationship with her ex-husband. It’s over six hours of content, all about a stranger’s experience of living with a compulsive liar. But millions of viewers are eating it up, glued to Risa’s every last word on a platform with a reputation for wasting our attention.

I can’t go for a walk without headphones (lest I be left alone with my thoughts), so I’m constantly listening to podcasts and audiobooks. But Risa’s video revealed for the first time that I had gone for a walk while listening to TikTok, with my phone hidden in my pocket. And apparently, this was the storyteller’s intention.

“The series, ‘Who the F— Did I Marry’ is not something you have to sit down and watch while holding your phone,” Risa said. TIC Toc on Wednesday. “I did it the way I did it this way, you can actually listen to it as an audiobook, chapter by chapter, in order.”

This format may be unconventional, but it’s working. Even by TikTok standards, Risa’s rise has been meteoric. He had 50,000 followers on Friday; Now, less than a week later, she’s about to reach 2 million. And Google Trends says “Who did I marry” is the most searched wedding-related item this week.

TikTok naturally wants our attention. You can’t watch TikTok picture-in-picture on your phone, and on the For You page, the same video will play over and over until you scroll to the next video, so you’ll have to manually scroll to see more content. Have to swipe. But Risa is taking advantage of TikTok’s playlist feature, which switches from one video to the next in sequence.

“I let all 50 parts play while I was washing dishes, cooking, doing everything,” one commenter wrote on TikTok. “My son was like, Part 38, you’re still seeing that woman?”

Confessional, diaristic videos have been popular since the early days of YouTube. But style has evolved From bedroom vlogs to Story Time TikToks, which are often filmed in the car – a neutral, quiet space with good lighting. Typically, however, these types of vlogs are posted in real time as a diary complete, and subscribers join in and catch up when a new video is posted. But Risa posted 50 of her videos within a matter of days, talking about her experience from a few years ago, giving her a little more time to process the events. We see her in various stages throughout the day: she drives to work with curlers in her hair, records a few more videos with her hair and makeup done, then goes home to tell the story in her pajamas. It’s a two-way memoir: she’s talking calmly, continuously, and in chronological order about the past, but the videos themselves show us her present, as she goes about her daily life.

When we see Risa doing mundane things in her TikTok “audiobook,” she subtly hints to us that no matter how bad things get with her ex-husband, she’s still holding on.