PinkyDoll Mesmerized the Internet With Her Imitations of Video Game Characters

While watching a livestream video hosted by TikTok creator PinkyDoll, it won’t be long before you hear her say, “Ice cream is so good.”

She repeats the words over and over, sticking her tongue out and pretending to lick the cone noisily.

Every time she says her catchphrase, she gets paid. this is her job.

Pinky Doll, whose real name is Feda Sinon, became a social media celebrity this month thanks to a quirky livestream imitating a video game character.

In a typical performance, Sinon, 27, from Montreal, looks into the camera’s lens and says a pre-determined phrase. When she streams, her viewers send her gifts digitally in the form of cartoon items such as roses, dinosaurs, ice cream her cones and more. Each item is equivalent to a cash payment to Sinon. Presents pop up on the screen and Ms. Sinon reacts to each present with the same cartoonish demeanor.

Her reaction to the ice cream cone was become a mememany posted images of President Biden and his favorite snack with the words, “Ice cream is so good.”

Sinon speaks in a singing voice that has been described as a “sexy baby”. Sometimes she uses a hot iron to crack the corn kernels one by one. The effect is mesmerizing and deep in the uncanny valley.

Sinon is known as an NPC streamer on the internet. NPCs, short for “Non-Player Characters”, are pre-programmed video game characters that typically cannot be manipulated by the person holding the controls. As a result, NPC phrases and actions tend to be formulaic and repetitive. Ms. Sinon brings these rather mechanical characters to life.

When she realized she was playing an internet hero, screen recording A portion of her stream went viral on Twitter last week.Producer and rapper Timbaland also seems to be a fan of hers these days repost video On his personal TikTok account, he posted how he broke character after noticing Mr. Sinon was watching during a livestream. Twitter pop culture news account Popcrave reported that Timbaland was ranked number one. top viewer PinkyDoll stream data based on gifts sent and time spent watching. (A representative for Timbaland did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

What Sinon is doing is considered fetish content by some. For certain viewers, there is something sexual about sending her a gift and being able to control her every word and gesture. For other viewers, she is very attractive to watch.

Carly Kocurek, professor of game design and experimental media at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said NPC streaming should be thought of as an extension of cosplay, where fans dress up as their favorite characters from books, TV shows and movies.

“Often people will consume the media and think of different ways to dress up as the character or mimic the affordances of the character,” Kocurek, 41, said. “I don’t think this is unprecedented and irrelevant to the way people have been engaging with the media, especially games,” she added.

Sinon, who previously worked as a stripper and ran a cleaning business, said she started livestreaming on TikTok earlier this year as a way to make money.

“I was just cute,” she said in a phone interview. “I remember someone saying, ‘Oh my God, you look like an NPC,’ and they started sending me crazy money.”

She said she looked at some of the characters to get ideas for her TikTok creations while watching others play the video game Grand Theft Auto.

“I was like, ‘Let’s do what they did,'” she said. Still, she added, “I’m not quite sure” what an NPC is.

Since then, her TikTok account has grown to over 400,000 followers. Tens of thousands of people regularly watch her livestreams.

She said she enjoys thinking about the reaction to each present. “I could sit here all day, but I can’t because I have a son and I have to eat,” she said.

Sinon said she earned between $2,000 and $3,000 per stream. If you add up all your social media accounts, including Instagram and OnlyFans, that number comes to $7,000 per day for her.

Other creators profiting from this digital genre include Cherry Crush, who lives in Ohio and has over one million subscribers. YouTubeand Satoyu 727Japanese NPC creator with over 2 million TikTok followers.

“It’s very exciting. It’s fast-paced and very repetitive, so people sit and watch it to see what their next reaction is, or if I break character, or if I’m too gifted in some way.” We’ll see if it doesn’t mess up,” Cherry Crush said in a direct message interview for this article. (She wouldn’t reveal her real name, but she didn’t say online that she had “several stalkers.”)

Cherry Crush said she doesn’t consider her livestreams to be fetish content. “I never sexualize my show,” she said. “I always thought it was funny and funny.”

Media scholar Kocurek said viewers may see online content in ways the creators never envisioned.

“There is something here about how people consume media and how things get decontextualized and sexualized, whether the creators intended it or not,” she said. rice field. “It doesn’t mean that nobody consumes it in a sexual way, but it might mean that it’s not what the creators were trying to do.”

But Sinon said she doesn’t mind the mixed reactions.

“I don’t really care what people say about me,” she said. “If they want to think I’m this or that, I’m fine with that.”

“At the end of the day, I’m winning,” she added.