2023-07-16 15:08:56
In a TikTok live stream, a young woman with platinum blonde hair stares into the camera and holds a flat iron. Between the heating plates is a kernel of corn, ready to pop. Messages from the public scroll rapidly across the screen.
The woman licks the air. Ice cream, so good, she exclaims robotically. She repeats the gesture and the phrase several times, identically. Gang, gang, she continues, before imitating the sound of a balloon bursting. gang, gang. Yes, yes, yes! Ice cream, so good!
If you didn’t understand anything from the previous paragraph, you are not alone. These videos featuring Pinkydoll, the online pseudonym of a TikTokeuse and creator of adult content from Quebec, have left millions of Internet users around the world perplexed and disconcerted in recent days.
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I’m getting a lot of attention right now. You could say it’s not always the best attention, but whatever, it’s good for my pockets, laughs Pinkydoll in an interview with the Decryptors.
The content creator claims to have made $7,000 a day on TikTok and OnlyFans in the past week. Celebrities like rapper and actor Ludacris approached her for collaborations. It’s crazy, what is happening at the moment, is surprised the one who has already been a dancer in music videos.
Because, yes, these videos are very profitable. This type of live broadcast, called “NPC streaming” (New window) by the web culture encyclopedia KnowYourMeme, has been gaining popularity since last year. In short, the person in front of the camera reacts with a specific gesture each time they receive a certain type of gift from their spectators.
The concept is to imitate a non-playable video game character (NPC, or non-playable character in English). These extras usually act robotically and constantly repeat a few animations and lines.
The gestures of NPC streamers vary depending on the donation made to them: on TikTok, you cannot give money directly to a creator. Rather, it is virtual gifts (New window)such as flowers or ice cream, which have varying prices.
In Pinkydoll’s case, she licks the air and says ice cream, so good when someone offers her an ice cream cone, which has a monetary value of about 1.5 cents, the minimum price for one. giveaway on TikTok. The most expensive gift, him, worth nearly $700 (New window).
Video game community psychologist Rachel Kowert told the Daily Beast (New window) that NPC streams respond to two basic human desires: connection, because creators interact with viewers, and control, because they obey their commands.
It reinforces this idea of over-sexualized women who peripherally engage in play cultures, says Kowert. They are non-playable characters and not main characters, and we come to play on that.
Pinkydoll does not seem very worried or affected by the critics: she is above all happy with the opportunities offered to her by her new notoriety and recalls that she can count on the support of a legion of fans.
She is currently thinking of getting into rap. It is sure that explode if I do, she said.
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