Ice cream so good. Yes yes yes. Gang gang. Those phrases have reached meme status in a matter of about a week. Just last week, clips started circulating Twitter of Canadian creator PinkyDoll acting like an NPC (non-playable character or a video game character) straight out of “Grand Theft Auto” on TikTok Live, repeating a random string of phrases, pretending to lick an ice cream cone, popping air bubbles, and thanking seemingly every viewer who sends a gift while popping popcorn kernels with a hair straightener.
Yep, you read that description of things that can only exist in 2023 correctly.
If you haven’t seen PinkyDoll on your For You Page, you may have read about her in mainstream publications, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. Not only has she been immortalized as a meme, but she’s also in the paper of record, putting her in an elite, albeit strange, class of creators.
PinkyDoll’s TikTok lives can bring in thousands of viewers, and they’ve been met with a spectrum of reactions, from confusion to amusement. She’s been live streaming on TikTok since the start of the year, her particular brand of content is eccentric. But she’s cashing in. PinkyDoll told the Daily Beast that she goes live three times a day and earns $2,000-$4,000 per live. She estimates that she’s earning around $7,000 a day.
Other creators are catching on, too. Scroll through the Live section of TikTok and chances are, you don’t even have to scroll that long before you see a number of them acting like NPCs literally right now. …
