For many people in the comedy industry, TikTok still carries the same perception it did when it first topped the App Store in 2020.

Back then, the average length of the app’s 100 most viewed videos was just 15.6 seconds . The main reason being, the maximum upload length was 60 seconds. It would have been unthinkable to post footage of live comedy sets on there, as the prevailing wisdom was that this was an app for easy-to-learn choreography and bedroom musicians.

Then came the rise in popularity of “front-facing camera comedians,” and sketch comedy groups who had never performed in front of live audiences, but were routinely posting videos getting watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Still, a comic filming their sets was looked down on in a similar way to the gym bro filming

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