Believe it or not, I used to have a decent social life, and the café was the centre of it.

Since time immemorial (for someone with my scattered brain, at least), I’ve been hanging out in cafés, creating bonds and laughs and memories. Thursday evenings were always my jam. Flirting with the barista was a weekly ritual as sacred as Anglican communion.

Sometimes I’d go during the week just to write, scroll my phone, or think. The venue mattered, which is why Tim Hortons was also amazing. It was the same café no matter where I was. But I always preferred a more subtle, more personal ambiance. My café became my living room. My safe place. Even now, I still go every Thursday evening, because I’m a Thursday night kinda guy.

But nowadays I go alone.

My crews? Scattered.

I’ve had many crews. I’ve lived around the world and built social groups with people from all walks of life in all kinds of places. But all of them have one thing in common: they no longer sit in cafés with me.

Marriage, kids, careers… the regular pushes and pulls of modern life slowly ended those gatherings. Then COVID came and killed rituals as well as people. Already-fragile social circles shattered. Suddenly everyone had an excuse to stay home. Long after the mask mandates and lockdowns ended, most never came back outside. They’d rather text. Or doom-scroll. Or Netflix and not chill. The gravitational pull of solitude has proven too strong.

So now, most Thursdays, I walk the streets of Ottawa alone.

I find a café, order something, and sit with my thoughts.

It’s fine. Peaceful, even.

But it’s most certainly empty.

I guess I’m just lonely.

And then, by accident, I stumbled into TikTok livestreams.

Before we go any further, I should mention I’ve always been a fan of live streaming. Back in the early days of lockdown, a friend of mine, someone I’d gamed with for years, started streaming on Twitch. He was deep into Sea of Thieves (a game all about being a pirate), and I found myself watching along, chatting and joking with him and the little crew he’d gathered in his chat. There was comfort in it. It felt like a digital pub (for pirates, no less). Familiar voices. Shared inside jokes. The hum of a community.

So when I landed on TikTok livestreams a few months ago, I found the same vibe.

But this time it felt even more profound. There was no game taking centre stage, only real people. Talking. Dancing. Sitting in their rooms and reaching out into the void

I. Digital campfires

The first TikTok livestream I stumbled into looked like just another thirst trap, the kind I had been flicking past since I first started doom scrolling that infernal app. A beautiful Asian woman was dancing. But something about her made me pause.

She was wearing traditional Chinese dress and moved with a quiet elegance. No twerking. No flashing skin for coins. She was doing a traditional dance. It felt more like traditional Chinese theatre than a social media performance, and I tapped the screen and joined the stream.

She was instantly engaging. Warm and welcoming. A real charmer. Her accent was thick, and she struggled with a few English words. One of them came out sounding unintentionally rude, so I gently corrected her. She smiled, repeated it, and kept swaying with that haunting melody playing from somewhere in her room. She was clearly delighted to be learning something new.

She followed me back. We exchanged messages. Before I knew it, I had a student. She was a schoolteacher in Wuhan, and she started teaching me Mandarin in exchange for English. Even today we connect once a week on WeChat for language lessons.

Well that’s certainly better than Twitch!

Then I found another streamer. And another. Each one a real person with a real life, quietly building a community on this strange little app. One was a flirty, wisecracking girl from Calgary now living overseas. My Canadian-ness earned me an instant place in her chat. Another was a gentle woman from New York who never asked for gifts or “tap taps.” She just talked.

These were not influencers. These were people.

And I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Every stream had its cast of characters. Some were flirts. Some were jokers. Some just sat there sending emojis into the night. But they were there. Night after night. Not just lurking, but participating. Picking up old threads of conversation. Sharing inside jokes. Offering comfort. Asking questions. Listening. It felt honest.

I’ve seen people cry on these streams. I’ve seen chats pause their usual chaos to rally around someone in pain. I’ve seen unexpected kindness. I’ve seen streamers collapse in pure laughter from something ridiculous going on in their chat.

Mr. Rogers would be proud.

II. The Third Place

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “the third place” in his 1989 book The Great Good Place (a fantastic read for anyone interested in sociology, btw). He argued that in addition to home (the first place) and work (the second place), people need a third space in their lives. A sort of social anchor where their community lived.

He described eight core traits of the third place.

1. They’re neutral ground
2. They are welcome to anyone
3. They flatten social hierarchies
4. Conversation takes centre stage in the third place
5. They’re accessible
6. They’re low-key
7. They’re full of regulars
8. Most importantly, they are a home-away-from-home

Online communities didn’t exist when Oldenburg wrote his book. He was writing about pubs and coffee shops and barber shops. But read that list again, and now look at a good TikTok or Twitch livestream.

The platform might be digital, but the essence is the same. A good livestream isn’t so much about the content as the presence of everyone involved. There’s the familiar screen names, the in-jokes, the warm welcome when someone shows up. It’s exactly what I used to feel walking into a cafe on a Thursday night.

IV. Observing these new communities

I’ve spent enough time in my favourite three or four communities to see some patterns in how they operate.

There’s the entertainer. You know the type. Full of energy, bouncing between dance moves and jokes in a kind of curated chaos. Their streams feel like a spontaneous party that somehow happens every single night. There’s banging music and jolly banter. But underneath it all is someone working hard to keep the mood up, a host managing the vibe and the crowd. This is modern busking, where the entertainer has traded guitars for ring lights.

There’s the gentle host, not there to perform. They sit in quiet rooms with warm lighting and mellow music. One sweet woman from New York has turned her stream into a literal jazz lounge. She asks thoughtful questions of the chat, remembers details about her regulars, and shares in both laughter and tears. She admits she’s a shy introvert and often lonely. The stream is her social outlet, and it proves the point.

Then there are the lookers. The boutique professionals. One I discovered early on is from L.A.: beautiful, poised, mysterious. She radiates confidence and doesn’t suffer fools in her chat, but she’s warm and loyal to her regulars. Still, she’s alone too, even if she doesn’t say it out loud.

None of these people are influencers in the Instagram sense. They’re not chasing brand deals or trying to build a “tribe” (and I freakin hate that word in this context). They’re just people, often lonely, trying to recreate their own third place.

And the viewers? The patterns are instantly recognizable. Every stream has its regulars. You see the same usernames night after night. The wisecrackers. The lurkers. The simps who try way too hard. The occasional creep.

There are the wealthy gifters who shower streamers with expensive TikTok gifts and expect affection or attention in return. That’s the loneliness epidemic, right there in action. Then there are the gatekeepers. Sometimes they’re actual moderators, sometimes just self-declared defenders of the vibe. They’ll block trolls and sniff out trouble, but sometimes they turn on newcomers and defend their turf like a trashy bar where the regulars glare at a new face and the drunk alpha wants to start something.

Each stream becomes its own little microculture. One’s a nightclub. One’s a teahouse. Another’s a smoky dive bar. You learn the tone, the rhythm, and the social hierarchy.

Over time, I found myself becoming a regular in a few of these rooms. I’ve made actual connections. One guy is a U.S. combat vet writing a novel about PTSD. We now follow each other and trade DMs. In another stream, I befriended a sharp German guy with a talent for dry insults. These aren’t just usernames anymore. They’re people I’ve come to respect, with their own TikTok feeds and stories.

To be fair, a lot of TikTok remains a parasocial grift. The thirst traps shaking their booties and asking for “tap taps” are still out there, surrounded by solar systems of hungry simps. I stay away. I was never into strip clubs anyway.

I’m a Thursday night guy. And the café is my jam.

V. The fragility of the livestream connection

Anything that flickers can be taken away.

I’ve seen it happen more than once. A streamer I’ve followed suddenly disappears. No final post. No explanation. Just gone. Sometimes the account remains, frozen in time. Sometimes it’s deleted outright, like they were never there at all. The community, once buzzing and active, scattered to the wind. A few regulars might DM each other, but most just fade back into the algorithm. One day you’re part of something. The next, you’re refreshing a page that never loads.

These are real connections, but they live on unstable ground. They’re built on apps that reward attention and burn out. TikTok doesn’t care about continuity or emotional arcs. It cares about engagement. So these digital cafés we find ourselves in can be bulldozed at any moment by the cold indifference of a For You Page that has moved on.

And yet people keep showing up. Streamers go live night after night. Viewers return. We chat, we laugh, we get vulnerable. I’ve seen people open up about grief, heartbreak, addiction, illness. Sometimes it’s just in passing, part of the flow of conversation. Other times the chat slows down and everyone quietly rallies. A streamer cries and no one laughs. Instead, a dozen strangers post hearts and kind words. And somehow, it helps.

What makes it fragile is also what makes it beautiful. This isn’t television. These aren’t performers in a script. These are people who woke up today, made themselves look presentable, and decided to go live for the companionship of strangers. They’re tired. They’re lonely. They’re trying to build something they can’t quite name. Maybe community. Maybe validation. Probably all of the above.

There’s emotional labor involved in livestreaming, especially when you’re the kind of streamer who listens and remembers names and tries to help people feel seen. That’s not just content. That’s caretaking. And it’s exhausting. One girl I know keeps a constant vibe of happiness but she’s wearing down, and lately I’ve seen the sadness and loneliness in her eyes. I can tell she’s a thinker, and probably overanalyzes everything in her life, and the vibe she built isn’t the right fit for her. I hope she finds a way to adjust, to be more true to herself.

Some of them keep going because they rely on the platform for income. Others stay because they’ve built real friendships with the people who show up each night. But many are clearly lonely themselves. They host these streams like you’d host a dinner party, hoping someone shows up. And most nights, someone does. Sometimes it’s me.

And I wonder what it means that I keep going back. I know which regular will crack the first joke, which gifter will drop the flashy digital rose, which moderator is going to enforce the vibe. These aren’t just streams anymore. They’re small worlds, and I’ve become a part of a couple of them by showing up enough.

But I’ve also felt that sting when someone important disappears. That feeling of caring a little too much about someone you’ve never met. There’s a strange, empty space when a familiar screen name stops appearing.

Sometimes, you find someone on the other side of the screen who gets under your skin in a good way. They become more than background noise. You look forward to their stream. You remember what they said last night. They remember you, and you see them genuinely light up when you log on, yet you may never meet them. You may never even know their real name.

VI. I’m still a Thursday night kinda guy

In the end, TikTok livestreams gave me something I didn’t know I was missing: a third place that fits in my pocket.

They’ve become a kind of café. Not quite the real thing, but close enough to feel familiar. Each room has its regulars, its late-night chatter, its rhythms and rituals. I’ve made friends there and felt seen there. I’ve laughed out loud in the dark with people I’ve never met.

But let’s be honest. It’s not a perfect replacement. There’s no clatter of cups or expressions of wonderment (or disgust) at the coffee. No subtle changes in body language. No comforting silence between two people watching the same snow fall outside the window. There’s no physical handshake, hug, or kiss. No real human weight in the chair across from mine.

I still go to the café every Thursday. I still order something warm and sit by myself, pretending that the right friend might walk through the door again. The streams fill some of that space, but they don’t replace it. They remind me of what I’ve lost. And maybe, in a small way, they help me grieve it.

I would love to have a coffee with some of the people I’ve met in those streams. I’d love to hear their stories in person, clink cups, and talk about nothing for hours. But I know that’s unlikely. Most of them are half a world away, living lives I’ll never fully see.

So I’ll keep walking the streets of Ottawa alone. I’ll keep going to the café. I’ll keep tuning into those digital campfires, even if just to warm my hands for a while.

Because I’m still a Thursday night kinda guy.