TikTok LIVE is Completely Cringe (2024)

TikTok is widely regarded as the king of short-form media. TikTok is more than a place a make and share short videos. It exists as a platform of unlimited creativity with it’s own communities and culture. One of the newer aspects of this culture is particularly disturbing.

The TikTok brand is no stranger to controversy. The app is officially banned for use by Federal employees in the United States, as well as by state-level employees in 34 of 50 states. In June 2023 a bi-partisan bill was introduced that would completely ban TikTok from all devices in the United States.

The reason for the ban on TikTok is that the government has expressed security concerns associated with the app, which is often referred to as spyware. Critics of the app find justification of their position in a series of leaked audio recordings that were revealed during a 2019 investigation conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The recordings covered more than 80 meetings at ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent of TikTok, in which they discussed employees repeatedly accessing private, non-public information of targeted American citizens.

Despite these challenges, the popularity of TikTok continues to surge. As the platform grows and matures, new features are created to allow members to create their own communities, which sometimes take shape as sub-cultures on their own. Many of these are harmlessly entertaining, but some are truly creepy.

Livestreaming On TikTok

Offering the ability to stream content to a live audience was a natural progression for a company that built it’s foundation on video sharing. Branded under the name TikTok LIVE, the streaming platform allows users to communicate with their audience in real time.

The concept of TikTok LIVE is not indifferent to competing livestream platforms, such as Twitch. Fans of a particular TikTok user can see and hear the streamer on live video, and can also communicate with the streamer or each other via an embedded chat feature. Fans can support their streamers by paid subscriptions, or by giving the streamer stickers or other gifts that have a real money value associated with them.

TikTok LIVE remained surprisingly lackluster until recently. Despite having a large global user base of people posting videos from their phones, the live streaming platform just never had the same spark that the short-form video side of the business enjoyed. The majority of streams aired on the platform were from people wanting to sell the products they featured on their stream, sort of like a small scale home shopping channel aired from the streamer’s living room.

That boring image of TikTok live was instantly washed clean with a bizarre new trend taking shape on the app. Prepare to enter the strange world of NPC streaming.

NPC Streaming on TikTok

Anyone with an interest in gaming will recognize the acronym NPC to mean Non-Playable Character. These are the background characters found in video games, who offer a limited number of actions and dialogue to player interactions. In a disturbing new TikTok trend, known as NPC Streaming, the streamer assumes the roll of a human NPC under the direct control of the viewing audience.

“ice cream so good…yes, yes, yes…gang, gang…ice cream so good”

Those are the repetitive lines given by TikTok NPC streamer PinkyDoll, who is a leader in the space and typically has upwards of 12,000 concurrent viewers at any given moment. The spoken lines, along with associated body movements, are rapidly repeated in a non-stop manner, directed purely by the commands of the audience.

NPC streaming was first pioneered by Japanese TikTok user natuecoco, who’s cat ear hairstyle and cartoonish giggles propelled her to fame as being like a living anime character. Together with PinkyDoll and fellow NPC streamer Cherry Crush, natuecoco found a new level of exposure (though not necessarily good), when their bizarre TikTok streams found their way onto Twitter.

“I was just scrolling TikTok and I just wanna say.. some of you bitches are literally psychotic” tweeted member ayeitsbritbrat1, along with a screen capture of one of PinkyDoll’s recent streams.

Following this initial tweet, Twitter exploded with video clips of NPC streamers. To most people, the videos seemed confusing and bizarre to the majority of people. “kitty paws rawr…kitty paws rawr…I’m so hungry”. What is this?

At first the actions make no sense at all and make the person appear mentally unstable. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the streamer is performing these actions in response to paid requests from the viewers. The viewer purchases virtual stickers to gift to the streamer, and once given, the streamer will perform the action associated with the sticker used.

Although bizarre, the repetitive and rhythmic pace have a sort of hypnotic effect once the initial shock has subsided. Many people questioned whether there was some sort of kink associated with NPC streaming. While there is nothing overtly sexual in the streams, people hypothesized that it fills a need for people who have a control fetish. I personally think it’s as simple as the same validation one receives on Twitch when they gift “bits” to their favorite streamer in hopes of being validated by having their name mentioned. It’s just that with NPC streaming, the gratification is immediate and rapidly recurring.

People Pay for This?

The short answer is, “yes, yes, yes”, although the amount earned by the streamers is up for debate.

The most immediate source of revenue for the streamer comes in the form of the stickers that trigger their actions. Viewers must purchase these stickers with TikTok coins, which cost real money to buy. Stickers cost $0.01 to buy. This may sound like much, but the streamers I watched received 2–5 stickers per second, every second. That is a minimum of $60/hour in stickers, which isn’t bad money for pretending to be a controllable character.

The bigger (and less obvious) money comes in the form of overlays. If you want to see your favorite NPC streamer wear a mustache or a cartoon cowboy hat, that can be accomplished for just $0.99. At a buck each, these overlays add significantly to a streamer’s income, and they are used generously by NPC streaming fans. PinkyDoll, for example, is rumored to earn an average of $4000 per hour as an NPC streamer.

The bigger issue is not really the fact that people earn a living as human NPCs, but rather, the question of what are the long term consequences of this type of content. Many viewers seem to partake of NPC streams for hours at a time, perhaps multiple times per week. The streamers themselves are definitely subjected to endless hours of this repetitive content. TikTok has often been accused of “dumbing down America”, and in watching a few of these NPC streams, it’s hard to argue with that point of view.

What do you think about NPC streamers; completely cringe or harmless fun?