The rings will appear around profile pictures when a channel is live. YouTube is adding a new way to show when a channel is live streaming on its platform. Their CFO, Neil Mohan has announced on Twitter that this new feature consists of showing a ring in the world live on it around the channels profile picture when they live stream, you can just tap on it and go straight into the live broadcast and this feature will make it. easier to find current live content as you browse through Youtube.

This feature is not new and is being used on many other different social media services like TikTok as they use a similar ring effect on a channel’s profile picture. Instagram also shows a colorful ring around the profile pictures of live streaming accounts when they’re shown at the top of your feed. Just the way Stories originally started on Snapchat But as it was too good of a feature, it was almost cloned by every social platform out there. 

Just like that feature, it seems like this live UI ring was too great to not integrate into YouTube (It’s not just the live UI ring that YouTube took from TikTok) This new feature called YouTube shorts also took inspiration from TikTok, this feature allows users to browse short-form video content using a vertically scrolling feed.