Reddit Brings Viral Stories to Life with New Video and Audio Experience

Reddit is taking steps to transform the way users consume its most popular content by introducing a new "video Reddit" experience. The platform announced plans to bring viral stories to life through narrated video and audio formats, allowing users to listen to posts in the background while engaging in other activities. Starting Monday, Reddit will begin testing an initial version of this feature across select communities, offering both video and audio posts to gauge which formats resonate most with its audience and have the potential to scale.

The company first teased its intentions for narrated Reddit videos during its second-quarter earnings call in July. At that time, CEO Steve Huffman informed analysts that people were already consuming Reddit content in this manner on other platforms.

The Rise of Narrated Reddit Content

Huffman was referencing the growing trend on social media platforms like TikTok and Meta's Reels, where popular Reddit stories are frequently featured through text-to-speech narration or read aloud by creators. These videos often display the text on screen as it is read, sometimes accompanied by unrelated footage such as video gameplay or cooking content.

"There is an emerging content type elsewhere on the internet of, basically, podcasts where people read Reddit content," Huffman explained during the call. "I think this version of, like, listened-to or spoken Reddit can be really engaging, as well," he added.

Early Testing and User Experience

Reddit told TechCrunch that the initial tests are early, limited experiments designed to help the company understand how these formats can be useful to users and whether they can be implemented in a way that feels authentic to Reddit. When available, users will have the option to choose whether they want to "read" or "play" a post.

The test will initially focus on select English-language posts and will be accessible through Reddit's iOS and Android apps. The new formats will not replace the original, text-only posts; users can still view and engage with the original post and comments as before. Instead, Reddit suggests that some users may prefer to listen to Reddit audio while exercising, walking, or running errands, while others might enjoy watching written conversations come to life through a combination of video and audio.

Reddit's History with Video

This is not Reddit's first foray into video. In previous years, the company launched native video hosting and experimented with various iterations of a TikTok-style video feed. More recently, Reddit introduced support for video in comments, which it reports now accounts for over 10% of video posts on its platform.

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