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July 21st, 2023 
Awake Goy 
The Pinkydoll NPC TikTok livestream trend has sent me through the five stages of grief. At first, I couldn’t grasp it: Who was this for? Why did people enjoy it? I felt frustrated. I tried to explain it away as some minor blip in the rapid cycle of internet trends. I despaired at the irreversible wasting of the collective mind. But now, a week into this brave new world, I have been relieved by a sense of acceptance. To delight in the slurps, the pops, the gentle monotony of these TikTok livestreamers whose only purpose is to respond to digital gifts for cash. Maybe it’s normal. Maybe it’s not even that new.
Once people realized that Pinkydoll—who first went viral for acting like a sensual robot and repeating phrases like “yes yes yes” and “ice cream so good”—was making money off her TikTok livestreams, there was no way the practice would come to a swift end. And over the past few days, thousands of new NPC creators and viewers have emerged.
NPC streamers behave like non-playable characters in video games who have only been programmed with a select few actions or phrases. In TikTok livestreams, these actions and phrases are dictated by the digital “gifts” they receive from viewers, like virtual ice cream cones, roses, and chili peppers. Each of these gifts costs money, ranging from a few cents to upwards of $40, which is paid out to the creator upon receipt of said gift. PinkyDoll told Motherboard that she is making upwards of $7,000 a day on these streams since going viral—$2.5 million a year, if she were to keep that up.
The question remains, why exactly are people so keen to spend their money on this?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore: anything that can be sexualized will be. There are, without a doubt, people who are getting off to these livestreams. But there’s also good reason to believe this isn’t the case for the vast majority of viewers, be they anonymous fans or celebrities like Timbaland. One major hint that this isn’t as entrenched of a “fetish” as it’s been made out to be is its lack of presence on Reddit. Nearly every fetish imaginable, no matter how niche, has a correlating subreddit to accommodate it. It may only have a few hundred members, but it will exist nonetheless. And while some may be related, such as those devoted to “hypnosis” porn or adult-oriented livestreams, but there is yet to be a group about the sexualization of NPC livestreams.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t something erotic to it, or at least pleasurable. Many have described the NPC livestreams as something akin to ASMR, a genre of YouTube and TikTok videos where creators speak in soft voices and make unique sounds with objects in an attempt to relax the viewer. This is something that has been sexualized by some, even when the content itself is PG. As with the NPC livestreams, ASMR creators are often beautiful young women who have developed a persona that feels as though it’s directly catered to you. In ASMR, they take on the role of a caring friend, doting massage therapist, or detail-oriented hotel front desk clerk, all of whose sole purpose is to help you feel comfortable. With NPC livestreamers, this dynamic has been distilled into its simplest form: you send them a little gift, and they perform an action for you. And that’s why some people are so keen to throw a few roses Pinkydoll’s way.
Notably, many NPC creators also make ASMR and NSFW content. CherryCrush, another livestreamer who went viral last week, has over one million subscribers to her ASMR-specific YouTube channel. Pinkydoll herself has an OnlyFans, and much of her prior non-NPC TikTok content promotes it. But neither of CherryCrush nor Pinkydoll’s ASMR and OnlyFans ventures include any NPC roleplaying. Instead, they remain distinct ventures of their own, each existing on a spectrum of online sensuality.
There’s plenty of bleak ways of interpreting this. We’re like rats who keep pressing a button for cheese. It’s a transaction at its digital endpoint. It’s entertainment in its lowest, simplest form. Is it really all that different, though, from the mediums of releasing dopamine we’ve relied on before? It relies on the same instincts we’ve always had, be it the enjoyment of following instructions or giving them, of buying someone a present, of simply watching a pretty woman put on a show. Even if the NPC trend does die out—which it has no signs of doing—the tendencies that have made it a thing in this moment will remain.
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