I make £5,400 a day dressing up as an elf and eating fake ice creams! TikTok craze sees ‘NPC streamers’ make a fortune by acting like video game characters in front of millions of online fans

Mmm, ice cream so good. Ooh, you made me feel like a cowgirl. Gang gang. Fire, fire, fire,” says TikToker PinkyDoll gleefully as she sticks out her tongue and noisily pretends to lick a cone.

To the uninitiated, her nonsensical verbiage may seem like baffling gibberish, but to those who enjoy TikTok live streams, they’ll probably seem very, very familiar. And for former stripper PinkyDoll, it’s her way of making a living.

Welcome to the new and bizarre trend of ‘NPC streaming’, which has taken the social media world by storm this month and sees TikTokers raking in thousands of pounds a day – with some earning more in an hour than the average Brit in a month.

The surreal trend is named after the “non-player characters” in video games that clumsily repeat pre-programmed phrases and movements. It sees some content creators dressing up as elves and trying to recreate the actions of these computer-generated extras while saying cartoonish slogans in a live stream.

PinkyDoll – real name Fedha Sinon – became an internet celebrity this month thanks to her eccentric reactions. The star’s social media following has exploded to nearly 800,000 after her “Ice cream so good” clip went viral. Now tens of thousands of people are tuning in to her live streams.

The new and bizarre trend of ‘NPC streaming’ has taken the social media world by storm this month, seeing TikTokers raking in thousands of pounds a day. In the photo: Cherry Crush

Named after the “non-player characters” in video games that clumsily repeat pre-programmed phrases and moves, the trend sees some TikTokers dressing up as elves and trying to mimic the actions of these computer-generated extras (Photo: Midorioxeno)

In a typical performance, the 27-year-old mother from Montreal, Canada stares into a camera as she utters a series of sentences. As she streams, fans send her digital gifts to which she responds. Some can be ice cream cones, others a donut or a rose. But they all represent payment for Ms. Sinon, who is also a star on OnlyFans.

The items, which range in value from $0.01 for a tennis ball emoji to more than $500 for a single TikTok “universe” symbol, can be exchanged for digital “diamonds” that can be converted into real money, with TikTok a 50 per cent chip as commission.

It means Ms. Sinon can now earn between $2,000 (£1,500) and $3,000 (£2,300) per stream – and around $7,000 (£5,400) per day across all of her social media platforms. Before she was making maybe $250 a day.

Ms Sinon, who previously owned her own cleaning business, said she started live streaming on TikTok early this year as a way to make money.

“I needed money to feed my child and pay the bills. I didn’t have a job,” she said Motherboard. “I decided to put all my energy on TikTok to make money. And I didn’t expect it to go viral.’

“I needed money to feed my child and pay the bills. I didn’t have a job,” Ms. Sinon told Motherboard. “I decided to put all my energy on TikTok to make money. And I didn’t expect it to go viral.’ She is pictured on Instagram

Ms. Sinon can now earn between $2,000 (£1,500) and $3,000 (£2,300) per stream – and around $7,000 (£5,400) per day across all of her social media platforms

Ms. Sinon previously earned around $250 (£193) a day from her streams before she became a viral sensation on TikTok

There are others jumping on this cash grab as well, with TikTokers like Cherry Crush and Satoyu727 raking in millions of followers and raking in a paycheck for pretending to be an NPC.

The producer and rapper Timbaland is reportedly one of Ms. Sinon’s biggest fans, having recently reposted a video on his own TikTok account of her breaking character during a livestream after noticing that he was watching.

But others were baffled by it, with one person saying, “I’ve never been so confused in all my life,” while another added, “This is more dystopian than any Black Mirror episode.”

Academics have branded what Ms. Sinon and others do as fetish content and argued that for some viewers, there was a sexual element to watching the video and controlling the actions of the content creators who created them.

Cherry Crush is another trending NPC streamer. She wears wigs and elf ears as she barks and makes ‘nom nom nom’ noises. Both Ms. Sinon and Cherry Crush have their own OnlyFans accounts with explicit content, but there’s nothing overtly sexual about their TikTok streams.

There are others jumping on this cash grab as well, with TikTokers like Cherry Crush (pictured) and Satoyu727 garnering millions of followers

Like Ms. Sinon, Cherry Crush has her own OnlyFans account, where she posts explicit content. She also has an Instagram account (pictured)

Cherry Crush poses with bright wigs and occasionally sporting elf-like ears in some of her streams and Instagram photos (she’s pictured in a post on Instagram)

However, Christian Tran, a doctoral researcher of internet culture and digital labor at the University of Toronto, suggested the videos were an extension of the kind of online performance erotic workers have been taunting for years.

“I think the NPC streamer can be understood as the media’s kind of granddaughter of the ‘e-girls’ influencers that populated Twitch and TikTok in the early 2020s,” she said. The protector. “These are also self-sexualized creators who have built their following by combining gamer culture aesthetics with cam girl influence.”

Cherry Crush, who hails from Ohio, America, insisted that her TikTok streams were not fetish content. “I don’t make my show sexually suggestive at all,” she told the New York Times. “I always thought it was just funny (and) entertaining.”

“I don’t really care what people say about me,” Ms Sinon added in an interview with the newspaper. “If they want to think I’m this or that, that’s fine with me.”

Matt Woods, CEO and founder of AFK Creators, which pairs the UK’s biggest online stars with brands like MasterCard and HelloFresh, said the trend has become popular with gamers.

“This whole trend may feel like an episode of the TV show Black Mirror, but in fact, it can get compelling,” he told MailOnline.

Matt Woods, CEO and founder of AFK Creators, said the trend has become popular with gamers (pictured is Mirorioxeno)

Cherry Crush (pictured), who hails from Ohio, America, insisted her TikTok streams were not fetish content

“From a creator’s perspective, it looks funny, but it’s also a huge way to monetize donations and gifts, especially on TikTok.

“From a user’s perspective, people derive satisfaction from controlling the actions of others, the same way they do in real life or in video games.”

Matt predicted that the trend would help TikTok “grow tremendously” as the donation model “hasn’t really taken off” so far.

“Now, with this trend of donating digital items for people to impersonate computer game characters, the donation model has exploded, meaning the amount of money generated from donations and gifts, as well as the growing number of average non-TikTok people who have started both streaming and watching live TikTok,” he added.

For PinkyDoll, it was all about hitting while the iron is hot and making money while she can. “I win in the end,” she adds.