Pinkydoll, source: The New York Times, 2023
Our 2024 VRAL program opened by spotlighting Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler’s Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1. This 16-minute experimental video from 2016-2017, a “machinima sui generis”, warrants extended analysis in its own right and we highlighted key themes in our extended conversation with the artists. But since contextualizing unique works within broader cultural spheres often proves illuminating, we will situate Freeroam À Rebours within surrounding phenomena that inspire comparative examination and share (perceived) resonances. We begin our critical discussion by provocatively juxtaposing Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1 with Pinkydoll’s performances on TikTok. This surprising collision between avant-garde video art and sexualized social media spectacle may first appear discordant. Yet, we believe that exploring affinities and divergences could uncover deeper truths. What crosstalk might emerge by contrasting these works’ differing aims, aesthetics and receptions as they meet in the wider landscape of contemporary media culture? A word of advice: keep an open mind.
One of 2023’s most discussed TikTok “phenomena” blurred the lines between the real and the simulated. The so-called NPC streaming genre features content creators endlessly repeating canned gestures, catchphrases, and stilted movements in response to viewers’ “gifts” that cue different reactions. They embody non-player video game characters, predictable and limited in their responses, as if not quite human or, perhaps, post-human. Viewers are drawn to the surreal, hypnotic spectacle.
To grasp the allure of NPC streaming, it is useful to spotlight TikTok’s both participatory affordinaces and business model enabling this phenomenon. The platform allows direct viewer engagement through digital “gifts”: that is, users pay performers to enact repetitive reactions that evoke programmable game characters. This transaction triggers an unconventional power dynamic: viewers request machine-like responses from creators roleplaying as robotic entities of narrow capability. The performers dutifully oblige, echoing simulated automatons, reducing their agency in a subtly objectifying, sexualized manner.
Yet, for all its resonances with command-control dynamics, this parasocial relationship remains grounded in consent and direct remuneration. In other words, the performers voluntarily adopt constrained, submissive personas because they provide lucrative opportunities. Audiences understand these limits as conditions of a (literally and metaphorically) limited exchange that produces puzzling visual pleasures.
Consider the case of Pinkydoll, the online persona of Canadian content creator Fedha Sinon, who gained viral popularity on TikTok in the summer 2023 for her NPC livestreams…
Matteo Bittanti
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