Reesa Teesa’s TikTok tale proves our attention spans are waning less than we think
This week, TikTok user @reesamteesa has gone viral for her 50 – yes, FIFTY – part series on TikTok titled “Who TF Did I Marry?!?”. With captivating detail, Reesa tells the story of her ex-husband “Legion”, a man she describes as a pathological liar who deceived, schemed and misled her about almost every aspect of his life.
If you thought a 50-part TikTok series sounded long, each TikTok is around ten minutes. That’s about eight hours of content. Who’s devoting eight hours to a single TikTok saga?
Turns out, a lot of people. Every single one of these videos has over a million views. The most popular of the bunch, Part One in the series, is at over 26 million and counting. But perhaps more important than the traction is the community of loyal supporters Reesa has accrued along the way. Her fans are lapping it up. They’re thoroughly invested – there are calls for Netflix to pick up her story for a film. She’s even got merch on the go.
The takeaway for brands
Marketing best practice on TikTok dictates that the shorter we can make our content, the better. Don’t waste words. Brand message in the first three seconds. Our dwindling attention spans can’t withstand much more.
Yet moments like these prove that there IS an appetite for long-form content in traditionally short-form spaces. OK, maybe your next TikTok doesn’t justify a ten-minute long mammoth production (Hilton might say otherwise). But it underlines the evolving art of storytelling on the platform – and that our attention spans might just be longer than we think.
