‘It’s like a Sims world’: Edge of Las Vegas videos are TikTok’s latest obsession

If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you might have noticed a new unexpected fascination taking over your feed: the “Edge Of Las Vegas.” It all started with a viral video showing how abruptly the city gives way to open desert, prompting comparisons to video games like The Sims, or movies like The Truman Show. Since then, TikTok creators living at the borders of Vegas have been posting their POVs, sparking both admiration for the landscape, as well as an eerie, existential dread over how surreal it all looks and feels.

On March 23, 2025, user @michaelkelly_in_vegas posted a now-viral video of an airplane overlooking Las Vegas with the caption, “It’s weird to me how Vegas just…ends.” As of April 29, the video has pulled in over 3.2M likes and 14K comments—leaving thousands astonished and confused about the sharp and ‘artificial’ transition between the city and the desert surrounding it.

@michaelkelly_in_la #lasvegas ♬ Waking Up In Vegas – Katy Perry

‘The edge of Las Vegas’: Creators are giving a ground-level view of the city’s abrupt city edge

Naturally, this wasn’t the end of the trend. Following Kelly’s video, TikTok’s fascination with the city’s unusual formation began to spiral into a deeper obsession with the “Edge of Las Vegas”, which has continued to grow in the days and weeks. Creators living on the borders of the city have been sharing their POVs from ground level, including from their backyards. One of these, Tiani (@tianishaye), has posted various videos providing different angles of the desert’s borderline as it meets her house, as well as close-ups of the mountains surrounding it.

Contrary to people’s perception of the area as feeling strange and fake, she expressed that she enjoyed living there. “Honestly, I love living on the edge of Vegas,” she told viewers. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, there’s not a lot of commotion.”

@tianishaye This is just on one side. The other sides are also endless 😅 in case you were wondering what the ground view looks like! #edgeofvegas #lasvegas ♬ original sound – Tiani

Another, @yourfaveazn, posted a POV looking over a wall in her backyard—sharing Tiani’s view with the caption “it’s actually amazing not having neighbors to the left and in front of me.”

@yourfaveazn it’s actually amazing not having neighbors to left and in front of me #lasvegas #lasvegasstrip #edgeoflasvegas #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #desert #casino ♬ this feeling – Øneheart

Some call it peaceful, others say it’s giving Fallout energy

Despite the positive views of Vegas homeowners though, many users commented on how eerie the landscape would be to live in. “Aren’t you worried about DeathClaws?” wrote one user, referencing a fictional reptile from the Fallout games.

Las Vegas joins the liminal space discourse

The fascination with the Edge of Vegas isn’t happening in a vacuum. TikTok has long been obsessed with “liminal spaces,” or environments like empty hallways or deserted malls and office buildings. The recent “still water” meme and TikTok trend—a series of urban exploration videos showcasing the dangers of finding stagnant water in abandoned places—testifies to this fascination. These strange in-between places seem stuck between worlds, and as such, simultaneously evoke nostalgia and fear.

The internet has long been obsessed with transforming benign occurrences into paranormal creepypastas, and the Edge of Vegas trend hits that same nerve. Many commenters are fascinated by these videos because of the unsettling feeling that the empty desert evokes—especially at night—drawing on fears of cryptids like skinwalkers or serial killers hiding bodies there. “Girl go back inside and lock the door,” one user commented, while another said “It’s giving “no one would hear you scream”😭”

Others, however, were noticeably less impressed—and felt unconvinced that Vegas was in any way out of the ordinary, let alone harboring anything paranormal. 

Satellite images reveal the real reason Las Vegas looks so strange

TikToker @cirruslyyesterday recently made a video discussing the Edge of Vegas trend—using satellite imagery to explain the real reason that the city abruptly stops the way it does. “So Las Vegas sits in a bowl, it’s in this valley—a basin that’s about 600 square miles,” she explains. “These natural barriers of the mountains around it control the population.”

Despite the logic behind it—she admitted that looking at Vegas gave her “existential dread”. Reinforcing that just because we understand something in theory, that doesn’t stop us from imagining what might be out there, lurking within it.

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