Don’t Panic — The Red Person on TikTok Doesn’t Mean You Were Stalking Anyone

For months, people have been spotting a little red person icon on TikTok in their search results, and for months, they’ve been trying to figure out what the heck it means. There’s no clear explanation, and the icon seems to pop up at random, or does it?

If you’ve been driving yourself crazy trying to decode the red person on TikTok, you’re not alone. The good news is you’ve officially reached the end of your search, because we’ve got answers. And we’ll quickly dispel the rumor that it means you were stalking someone’s account because it doesn’t seem to be that at all. Let’s get into what it actually means.

If you’re seeing a little red person icon appear in your TikTok search results, it seems to indicate an actual user account you clicked on, not a trend, sound, or product. For example, if you search for Kim Kardashian, her verified account appears in the results, and you click it, you may see a small red person icon next to her name when you return to your search results.

It’s essentially TikTok helping you quickly spot which search result is the real account versus results tied to trends or products.

So if you search for something general, like “Kim Kardashian hair,” the icon likely won’t appear next to anything when you go back to your search results because you were searching for a style or topic. TikTok might take you to a video showing how to get her hairstyle, not her actual account.

Redditor @Morganjoyce1 was also confused about what the red person icon means on TikTok, so they did a little testing to figure it out. Here’s what they found: “So I went to TikTok and from what I'm understanding is it appears after you searched an actual account. If you searched a trend and then looked back at your search history, there won't be a little red dude," they explained.

They continued, "But if you searched a profile and it instantly pops up, the little dude appears next to their name. I did test this with people I don't follow and do follow — same thing.”

Another person commented something similar on @msbossyga’s TikTok video where she asked about the icon, explaining that it “means you’ve had interaction with that profile.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean you chatted with someone, liked their content, or have visited their page multiple times. It appears to simply mean you searched that profile and TikTok showed you their actual account (and you clicked it) instead of related content, hence the little person icon next to it.

Someone else attempted to put their two cents in, writing: “It just means you physically searched that person … And you clicked on it.” And that seems to track, since @msbossyga confirmed in the comments that the account she searched, the one with the red person icon, was one she clicked on to see what they had going on. Make sense?