If you scroll TikTok today it’s likely you’ll stumble on a creator greeting you in an unusual robotic persona. “Ice cream so good,” one leading influencer, PinkyDoll, says to viewers before licking a virtual ice cream on screen.
This is often followed by equally peculiar phrases like “gang gang” and “yes yes yes”.
But people do strange things on social media every day, so why is this one worth extra attention?
Well, for one, this bizarre performance nets her around $7,000 a day and has turned her into an internet celebrity.
PinkyDoll, real name Fedha Sinon, is part of a growing number of creators on the platform pretending to be NPCs (non-playable characters).
If you’re not familiar with the world of gaming, the term is used to refer to the background characters in video games who are not controlled by a player and are coded to give pre-determined dialogue.
But on this occasion, the human NPC influencers are controlled by TikTok viewers who are paying real money to send them gifts on the app and watch them perform these gestures and phrases.
How PinkyDoll went from rags to riches on TikTok
It’s not particularly clear when or why TikTokers started pretending to be NPCs, but the trend went mainstream this month when PinkyDoll went viral on Twitter.
Sinon streams for six hours a day seven days a week, responding to digital gifts in the form of cartoon items like roses and dinosaurs, sent by fans with her series of cartoonish catchphrases—her most famous repertoire being licking ice cream cones.
She pivoted to social media after her cleaning company folded and she needed money to feed her kid and pay the bills.
“I had no job,” the 27-year-old who lives in Montreal told Vice. “I decided to put all my effort on TikTok to make money.”
And it’s turned out to be a lucrative career move: Each gift that floats onto Sinon’s screen can be converted to cash.
The gifts themselves are not that expensive, setting TikTok users back a few cents or dollars which Sinon could convert into around $250 a day.
But that was before she became an internet sensation.
Now, having amassed almost 820,000 followers apparently including hit producer Timbaland and Elon Musk, Sinon recently revealed to the New York Times that she earns between $2,000 and $3,000 per stream and is cashing in $7,000 a day across OnlyFans, Instagram, and TikTok combined.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
Why are people paying for this?
Although Sinon is the NPC creator of the moment, many influencers and even lesser-known celebrities like Trisha Paytas, who briefly starred on Celebrity Big Brother, have been tapping into the trend.
Much like Sinon, they can be found digging into virtual ice creams and pretending to enjoy other cartoon food items while speaking in a “sexy baby” voice.
Although there’s nothing overtly erotic about the streams, some experts say its appeal is rooted in fetishism.
A university researcher of internet culture, Christine Tran, told The Guardian that viewers may take pleasure in commanding women, as well as, “the aesthetics of gamer culture”—after all, there’s an entire category of porn based on comic-like Manga women.
But one prominent creator, Cherry Crush, disagrees. “I don’t make my show sexually suggestive at all,” she told the New York Times.
Instead, she thinks fans are spending their time and money watching her streams, to see her “next reaction” or if she “will break character or mess up from too many gifts.”
Either way, PinkyDoll is too busy making money and trying to break Hollywood, to be bothered by whether people think her content is sexual—or strange, for that matter.
“I don’t really care what people say about me,” said told the New York Times. “If they want to think I am this or that, it’s fine with me. At the end of the day, I’m winning.”