On TikTok, the keyword #NPC (“non-player character”, “non-player character”) has amassed more than 9 billion views. For several months strange content has multiplied on the platform, as seen by the media Vice. Internet users stage themselves pronouncing certain words or performing brief and repetitive actions.
In fact, the term “NPC” refers to non-playable characters in video games, robotic voice, and abrupt gestures. In exchange for this fully automated behavior, TikTok users pay them.
“Ice Cream Is So Good”
Among these women, one is particularly followed. She is Pinkydoll (Fedha Sinon, her real name). The 27-year-old Montreal resident has more than 458,000 subscribers. She broadcasts live videos on TikTok during which she reacts to viewers’ gifts sent live.
These buy tokens that appear as on-screen icons that content creators can collect and cash out in real currency. These offerings take the form of ice cream cones, roses, donuts, or hearts.
In her videos, Pinkydoll can utter “Ice cream so good” ten times in a minute (“Ice cream is too good,” her favorite phrase), stick her tongue out with a sound from her mouth, or poke her ditty.
Each time, he speaks directly to the Internet user who sent his virtual gift by calling him by name. The spoken words usually refer to the nature of the various icons sent as a gift. A conduct that some describe as sexualized, alluding to fetish practices.
$3000 per session
During her live streamed videos, Pinkydoll has already reached one million views. When she started, she was making $250 a day and now she can make as much as $7,000 a day, she said. Vice. A single session on TikTok can represent a profit of 3,000 dollars, specifies the New York Times.
As Pinkydoll builds audiences, other content creators have turned to TikTok to follow the trend. Like Cherry Crush, who initially is present on the Onlyfans platform, recognized for distributing paid pornographic content.
In a different universe, but on the same model as Pinkydoll, Cherry Crush, is staged with background music and a little dance. Adopt a faster pace and connect onomatopoeia. Icons of ice cream, hot dogs and hearts scroll across the screen. Like Pinkydoll, she describes each of the icons and imagines gestures related to them. Again, with the aim of “dedicating” each initiative to the Internet user who paid for it. It has 85,000 subscribers.
The goal of these videos is above all to get the most views and monetize them. Internet users do not understand this TikTok phenomenon and advocate the generation gap: “I must be a boomer because I do not understand what is happening”, wrote one of them on Twitter.
Looking a little closer at the comments on these videos, especially the Cherry Crush ones, a lot of sexually explicit emojis are being sent en masse: eggplant, chili. The payment icons are also self-explanatory: ice cream, peppers, hot dogs.
The written comments, mostly written in English, but also in German, also echo innuendos based on “Yuuuum!” or “again” (“again” in French). When other users also show their misunderstanding live.
A sexualization still denied en bloc by the main stakeholders. “My acting doesn’t include anything sexually suggestive. I always thought it was fun and entertaining,” says Cherry Crush, with the New York Times. “I don’t care what people say about me. At the end of the day, I win,” Pinkydoll sums up.
Source: BFM TV
