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Viral TikTok streamer Pinkydoll has received a lot of pushback for her NPC-style method. Yet, viewers are paying her top dollar to react to gifts from other viewers throughout the stream. After her latest viral video, read more about how she started making nearly $10k a day inside.
The Montreal content creator didn’t start off streaming with the intention of going viral. Pinkydoll told Vice in an email that she started her TikTok streaming journey to make additional income after a personal tragedy.
Her approach is different than most streamers who go live with their friends, while playing video games or just simply telling jokes. Pinkydoll does “NPC” TikTok Live streams where she simply reacts to gifts from viewers, which appear as cartoon icons on the screen in real time. Items like ice cream cones, roses, donuts, barbells, finger hearts each provoke a different, quick-witted reaction from her. The gifts viewers send hold monetary value. Social media users purchase tokens from the streaming platform, which content creators can collect during streams and cash out in real currency. Fans on social media have dubbed this “NPC streaming,” after the non-playable characters seen in video games that react with rote, scripted phrases and robotic movements.
Pinkydoll once ran a cleaning company in Montreal, but when she returned from a trip to Seychelles Island for her stepfather’s funeral, she’d lost the company entirely.
“I needed money to feed my kid and pay the bills. I had no job,” she told Vice. “I decided to put all my effort on TikTok to make money and I wasn’t expecting to go viral and make all that money. It was a shock.”
This might sound a little time consuming to some fans interested in Pinkydoll’s new wave of streaming, but the Montreal native says she spends six hours a day on TikTok, seven days a week. That’s a little less time consuming than most American jobs.
“It’s not exhausting,” she assured Vice. “I kinda love to go live and reacting to gifts. There are so many and the views going up is boosting me.”
She has now reached up to one million views on one live streaming session.
“It’s keeping me energetic,” Pinkydoll adds.
The professional NPC TikTok streamer first started making $250 a day, but after her most recent viral stream, that turned into $7k a day and more.
Pinkydoll has set a trend of other content creators attempting to do similar livestreams. One streamer named Cherry Crush does a similar style of gifting stream and also generates money on OnlyFans. There are a few users benefitting from NPC streamers, and many who are just bad impersonators.
Pinkydoll considers herself ahead of the curve and assures the outlet that she doesn’t care what people may think of her.
“I think they are just jealous of my blessings, my attention, my money because in my DM I got famous rappers, hockey players, NBA players that keep writing me to keep pushing, encouraging me to go to the next level and congrats me,” she shared. “They love me. I ain’t gon lie it feel amazing to have all the attention and getting pay at the same time.” Keke Palmer gave her a shoutout; that was a big moment for her, she said. “I feel like I’m a brand new style… I was surprised to see how many people love me. Everyone on TikTok trying to do like me it’s insane.”
