Want to Raise a Digital Pet With Your Pals? Here's How to Get a "Streak Pet" on TikTok

Trends and hot topics on TikTok take up a lot of the world's time. And we do mean a lot. One study tracking user interaction with TikTok found that on average worldwide, users spend around 34 hours per month on the video app. If that sounds low to you, it might be because you're from the U.K. or the United States, where users spend about 49 hours and 46 hours per month on TikTok, respectively. This means that users are spending a lot of time making and watching videos and interacting with one another.

One way they can do that is through direct messaging. Earlier this year, TikTok came up with a way to provide a little boost of dopamine for users who interact via messages regularly, and it mirrors a feature already established on rivals Snapchat: streaks. More recently, they have introduced something known as "streak pets." Here's how to get one to raise with your TikTok pals.

Social media apps that have employed "streaks" are using a very basic psychological principle to drive up user interaction on their platforms. Streaks provide a little dopamine boost with each milestone met, which drives people to subconsciously seek that next milestone. Which means more and more time spent building up those streaks.

TikTok has now taken it a step further, providing users with a more visual reward system that induces them to spend more time building their streaks. These are called "streak pets." And they're pretty much exactly what you think they are: little digital "pets" that appear in messages between you and your streak pal. Your interaction through the streak will provide the care your "streak pet" needs.

In order to get a streak pet, you will first need to make sure that your TikTok is completely up to date. Then, build up a streak with a friend. An option should appear near the text box that prompts you to click "streak pet." TikTok will then provide you with a list of actions you can use to nurture your streak pet. Unsurprisingly, they all require more and more interaction.

Of course, TikTok is not Snapchat. So do people who use TikTok really want the popular Snapchat feature on their video-centric social media app?

The answer to that seems to lie in who you ask. Both apps have a large overlapping user base of Gen Z. So when a feature works for one, it will probably work with the other.

However, not everyone is convinced. One user explained the reason behind introducing streaks to TikTok, and comments were mostly in favor of the new feature. Yet one user wrote, "What’s the point of getting a streak tho? Like why should I care?"

Another lamented, "At this point all the apps are the same."

With TikTok hoping to shift more toward a "social" app and away from simply video-sharing, the incentive to interact more with other users makes sense. Unfortunately, feature copying across apps does seriously homogenize the social media experience. While that may appeal to a growing user base of Gen Z, social media platforms run the risk of isolating users who turn to their specific app because of its individual properties.

However, when it comes to TikTok and streaks, creating the streak pets was a genius move that could drive user interaction up significantly as people seek to gain the cute new social media status symbol. The app's potential for expansion and upgrades of the feature is basically limitless.