The hottest thing on TikTok these days? Sacrificing humanity and pretending to be an NPC. TikTok NPC streamers like Pinkydoll and Cherry Crush are inadvertently going viral and its freaking everyone out.
Pinkydoll, in particular, is hitting remarkable viewership highs with her bizarre videos of looped phrases and stiff mannerisms, typically filmed while she, uh, pops kernals of popcorn with a hair straightener (already a recipe for virality).
What’s going on?
By mid-July, videos of TikTok streamers Pinkydoll and Cherry Crush stiffly repeating canned phrases and gestures began trending on Twitter — one tweet of a Pinkydoll video has garnered nearly 50 million views.
Pinkydoll, a French-Canadian TikToker, was the first to garner attention but Cherry Crush, a Florida-based TikToker, wasn’t far behind.
Baffled Twitter users appropriately deemed the behavior exhibited in the viral videos akin to NPCs, the non-player computer-controlled characters who inhabit video game worlds.
In particular, these TikTok streamers recall the wooden NPCs seen in role-playing games like Bethesda’s Skyrim, which boasts some of the most amusingly odd NPC interactions in all of gaming.
Several other TikTok streamers are engaging in similar NPC behavior but Pinkydoll and Cherry Crush are the most viral examples.
Anyways, these streams consist of a simple, consistent formula: the streamer, facing the camera, bobs along with upbeat music, reacting to gifts purchased by viewers. These gifts take the form of stickers and filters that range in price from one TikTok coin to several thousand.
One TikTok coin typically costs about $0.01 and users can buy them in packs of 100 (about $1.29) or more. The streamer will receive some profits from the gifts purchased with TikTok coins.
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