Reddit is developing a new video and audio experience that could let people watch viral posts or listen to narrated Reddit stories while doing something else.
The curious part isn’t that Reddit wants a TikTok-style feed.
It’s that millions of people are already consuming Reddit this wa.
Just about everywhere except Reddit.
➜ The real story: Reddit spent years supplying the internet’s favorite drama for free, and it has finally noticed that TikTok creators turned those posts into an entire entertainment genre.
CEO Steve Huffman said Reddit is working on what he described as a “video Reddit” experience, with testing expected to begin later in 2026.
The format could combine videos from the platform with a separate listening experience built around spoken Reddit posts.
That means your next commute could theoretically sound like a podcast about somebody refusing to switch seats at a wedding, confronting an unhinged neighbor or discovering that their entire friend group has a secret group chat. Honestly, Reddit already has the scripts.
Narrated Reddit stories have become their own mini media industry on TikTok, YouTube and other platforms. A typical video pairs a text-to-speech reading of a viral post with gameplay, cooking footage or another visually satisfying clip designed to keep your eyes occupied while the story gets increasingly chaotic.
TechCrunch reported that TikTok currently has 19.6 million posts using the #reddit hashtag and another 9.9 million under #redditstories. Huffman described the trend as something close to podcasts built around people reading Reddit content, suggesting the company sees listening as more than a side feature.
Bringing that behavior into Reddit makes obvious sense. The company owns the original posts, the comments that add context and the communities where the stories begin, giving it something repost accounts usually can’t offer: the full rabbit hole.
Reddit hasn’t explained exactly what the new experience will look like inside its app. It could become a dedicated vertical feed, appear alongside regular posts or evolve into separate watch-and-listen modes depending on what users are doing.
The timing isn’t accidental. Facebook, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max, Amazon and even LinkedIn have introduced or tested short-form video feeds as platforms compete for the same increasingly restless attention span.
Reddit is also seeing early momentum from video comments, which launched in June 2026 and already account for more than 10 percent of its video posts. Meanwhile, the company reported 130.3 million daily active unique users during the second quarter, giving it a very large audience on which to test new formats.
The audio angle may be more interesting than another endless video feed. Reddit posts are naturally built like miniature talk-show segments: a setup, a complication, several questionable decisions and thousands of strangers arriving to deliver a verdict.
A listening mode could make those stories easier to consume while driving, walking or pretending to fold laundry. It could also help Reddit compete for time that would normally go to podcasts, audiobooks and YouTube without forcing the platform to abandon the text-based conversations that made it valuable.
The risk is that Reddit flattens its wonderfully strange communities into a generic conveyor belt of viral drama. The opportunity is a format that keeps the original posts, discussion and community context connected instead of stripping them down for somebody else’s algorithm.
Reddit is developing an experience that could let users watch videos and listen to spoken versions of popular posts. The company expects to begin testing it later in 2026.
Reddit hasn’t revealed the final design, but CEO Steve Huffman described the project as a “video Reddit” experience. It may include a feed for watching video alongside a separate background-listening format.
Narrated Reddit stories already attract large audiences on TikTok, YouTube and other platforms. Reddit wants to bring that behavior into its own app, where users can also access the original posts, comments and communities. |
