If you’ve been on Tik Tok recently then you’ve seen the influx of livestreams around vegans, being vegan, and vegans being infuriated by meat eaters. Whilst there have been creators that have spoken about these topics previously, there’s recently been a few that have used this area of the platform to build their own brands and make some money out of it too.
I’ll be looking at Vegan Samaritan and Vegan Veteran who both go live (livestream) daily and have a consistent audience of 2-5 thousand per stream. Considering the average Tik Tok live audience is 30, and the fact that they’ve both only been going since early February, this is very impressive.
Disclaimer: I don’t believe that either of them are vegan, they may have been in the past but have since converted, but that doesn’t matter for the breakdown going forwards. I’ll be analysing how they’ve built their characters / brands, how they maintain such a high audience and engagement rates every night, and the techniques they employ to make every live hilarious.
What does an Average Tik Tok Live Look Like?
It’s important to break down the different types of Tik Tok lives so you understand how the live system works before looking at the vegan creators and how they’re mastering it.
The average creator will go live and then speak about their day or whatever’s on their mind whilst people tune in and comment. They’ll then respond to the comments and start conversations from there. This is the most basic version of a live and, in all honesty, your success rate depends on how attractive you are or what the information you’re sharing.
The step up from this is to go live with other creators by either “bringing people up” from their comments or by using Tik Toks Live Tables (a database of everyone who is live at that moment) to find other to discuss or battle with (small games that can be played against each other). This is slightly more entertaining to watch since there’s more randomness but does require interesting people throughout or else it gets boring.
The final type of live that’s popular is a “debate” live where a creator will set a topic and then bring people up to discuss it with them. These topics are normally very one sided, as in the subjects are morally right but certain groups would disagree, but it can be entertaining to see the creator tear someone’s argument apart.
Each of these variations has their own benefits and creators will choose them based on their effort levels at the time, their goals, and their brand. For example, the replying to comments live is low effort but is a great way to speak to your followers whilst a debate live takes a lot more effort but can be more financially rewarding.
The Goal of Vegan Samaritan and Vegan Veterans Lives
The 2 biggest vegan Tik Tok channels at the moment are Vegan Samaritan and Vegan Veteran who both give live daily and receive thousands of gifts from viewers. The goal of these lives is to make money through receiving gifts and everything they do, from their character to the background picture, works towards this purpose.
According to this study, only 1% of the world’s population is vegan and these creators play on this by suggesting that meat should be banned and arguing with people about how they’re personally harming animals by eating meat. Their background is an AI generated image of a burger with various animals heads in it and blood dripping from the buns (acting as ketchup) and they don’t appear onscreen. There are various Tik Tok gifts that attach themselves to an onscreen character, such as a hat putting itself on a creators head, that will then send money to the creator.
Since the creator isn’t onscreen for these lives the gifts will put themselves on the heads of the animals or the burger itself which infuriates the creator. The creator will then stop whatever they were saying and call out the gifter, warning them not to send anything else and to “pack it in”. This always results in more gifts and the creator getting more and more angry.
The creator will also bring up “guests” who can then ask questions to the creator. These guests, who are in front of 2-5 thousand other Tik Tok users, will normally make a joke at the creators expense which will result in the creator getting angry and arguing with them before kicking them off. This is hilarious to watch and encourages others to “request” to join so they can make their own jokes.
How to Build a Character that Viewers Love to Annoy.
The above by itself would work just fine for any creator however the vegan creators have taken it a step further by creating characters for themselves and the audience to bounce off of.
How Vegan Samaritan Encourages Mockery
Vegan Samaritan has a simple yet functionable character with a clear end goal that everyone in the live knows and works towards.
His main gist is his pronunciation of words and his calm demeanour which slowly breaks down as more and more people mock him. He says vegan as “veg an” and has various other mispronunciations that guests can pick up on and mock him for. If he gets mocked too much then he’ll loudly perform breathing exercises and narrate himself as he meditates. On top of this, he’s very quick to “correct” guests if they say a word he doesn’t like or calls him a name (such as Mush or Jeff). This word or name is then commented hundreds of times which annoys the creator.
This character achieves a variety of goals from a comedic point of view however the main draw is how easily he’s set himself up to be mocked. Even if a viewer has no intentions of talking, they’ll have plenty of material to mock the creator with which then encourages them to request.
This is also hilarious for anyone watching the live because they’re essentially watching hundreds of people do a minute of stand up and the creator getting annoyed by it. There is an eventual end goal of the creator having to perform breathing exercises or completely losing his cool which is kept in everyone’s minds at all times. Will the next guest be the one to break the creator? That’s the question that everyone’s subconscious is asking and it’s why these Tik Tok lives maintain such high numbers throughout.
Takeaways from Vegan Samaritan:
- Set yourself up for mockery or confrontation
- Allow for a rising tension towards a known end point (calm – infuriated)
- Allow for others to “perform” through you to keep each live fresh and hilarious
How Vegan Veteran Builds a Character you want to Bully
Vegan Veteran has a quick to anger character that encourages people to bully him throughout his lives. Furthermore, he builds a story about his character with elements that viewers then bring into the live to bully him about. He’s taken what Vegan Samaritan has done for his character and built a world around it.
The reason you watch his lives is to listen to him SCREAM when people anger him. He has the catchphrase “HOW DARE YOU” for whenever anyone says something rude to him or sends gifts which is hilarious and encourages further bullying. If a guest is talking and someone sends a hat then he’ll scream “OI!!!” which is hilarious and will often cause the guest to break from their joke and start laughing.
This is all great and achieves slightly better results than Vegan Samaritan however Vegan Veteran takes this a step further by discussing and posting videos about his personal life and his vegan adventures. He talks about his time at “Vegan Campout” where him and Richard became trapped inside a tent and had to take their tops off because it was hot. These dramatic episodes are then expanded on throughout videos and makes his story not only extremely mockable but also quite interesting.
This has recently been taken a step further again by having characters make videos from his account claiming to be his parents and that he’s grounded for not flushing the toilet. Whilst this is probably just an in-universe way to avoid going live for a few days, it works to expand his character and give guests more to bully him with.
How to Expand your Characters World
Vegan Veteran is able to expand on his character and world because he sets up a scene and then allows his viewers to create their own theories for what happened. For the tent story, all he shared was that him and Richard were trapped and took their tops off because it was hot. He leaves enough detail out to allow you to theorize on what happened afterwards. He then dismisses your theories and gets annoyed when you share them which gives guests material to share on the live.
This is the structure for many of his stories and is a perfect example of how to put ideas into peoples heads. He sets up the scenario, and your brain thinks of the funniest thing that could happen within those parameters. You’ll think the idea is absolutely hilarious because you thought of it, which then encourages you to then share your theory by commenting on the video or joining his live.
The key takeaway here is to set up a scenario by sharing the first parts (the tent was stuck / we took our tops off) but then not sharing anything else. This allows for people to freely create their own stories around those parameters.
Takeaways from Vegan Veteran:
- Allow yourself to be bullied by quickly and aggressively reacting to opposition
- Build a world around your character that allows for people to create their own theories
- Expand on that world over time by taking peoples theories and working them into the story (for the tent situation, he reveals that Richard has a girlfriend who has heard of the rumours and is now considering breaking up with Richard)
Why Mockery is the Funniest Type of Comedy (UK at least)
What I’ve just described to you is the basis for why Vegan Samaritan and Vegan Veteran maintain such high viewing audiences and engagement throughout their lives and now I’m going to explain the psychology of why this works from a guests perspective.
All comedy comes at the expense of something, and this is something that you’ve subconsciously learnt early on. This is why you mock your friends when they fall over or do something stupid and is the basis for many British comedy shows. It’s easy to kick people whilst they’re down because the set up is already there for us which means that anyone can make a joke from it no matter how funny they are.
For example, if your friend randomly trips over on the street then there are endless possibilities for what you can say but all of them will be related to either the event of falling over or the friend. This could be “you’re clever” or “nice one” or relating it to something specific like “you didn’t do this on your date did you?”. All of these responses are very likely to get a laugh because they’re connected to the set up.
Comedy works in a set up – punchline format and the set up is usually the hardest part. You’ve got to pick a situation and then find an angle to approach that from that allows for a funny punchline afterwards. Mockery makes this process easier because the set up is already there and is usually hilarious on it’s own. All you’ve got to do is respond in a somewhat funny way to it which is easy because your brain subconsciously does that anyways.
Overview
- Allow yourself to be mocked / bullied for entertainment purposes
- Allow your audience to fill in the gaps with their own hilarious theories by only sharing the beginning of a story
- Immediate reactions are hilarious and should be used as feedback for an audience
- Set out a clear goal or tiers of escalation that an audience is aware of and can work towards