Sisyphus For Hire: TikTok Money Laundering

Philip J. Guys

TikTok, as a website, has simultaneously some of the best things to see on the modern internet today, as well has some of the absolute worst. This, of course, is not referring to the "cringe"-labeled videos that appear every so often in certain circles, but rather a whole network of unrelated streamers that, through one shared method or another, prey on the addictive nature of the app itself to farm donation payout.

The lucrative nature of these streams is without a doubt in part due to the algorithmic prioritization of live content. Every few scrolls past whatever videos appear on your feed are bound to drag in some sort of snake oil salesman, Twitch expat, or independent artist who mostly hangs about on a site like this for the exposure and attention (which, for a stream, meanders and picks up speed towards some kind of pay dirt). Among these ranks of streamers are those I like to call "Sisyphus For Hire", people who feed on anticipation and the ability to prolong short information or simple actions for hours at a time, taking donations in the form of "gifts" (each gift is worth a certain monetary value, tallied, and totaled for at least $20 payout) to influence actions that occur on stream. Sometimes gifts are a side effect, and the streamer goads on those whose feeds have suggested them their stream, to which they'll need "JUST FIVE MORE PEOPLE" to join, and then they'll reveal the codes to the nuclear football or some other kind of unknowable or impossible task.

The first image is one of many of these kinds of impossible tasks, where an illustration of people at urinals has hidden object Highlights Magazine-type things to find. The crutch (and it's always a crutch) is nowhere to be found, leading to people in the chat to call out locations in the image on where it might be found: of course, there is no such crutch, except in a metaphorical way. The streamer will raise the stakes; "IF I CAN GET A DISCO BALL, I'LL REVEAL THE ANSWER", to which a chatter gifts a disco ball. "THANK YOU FOR THE DISCO BALL, SAINTBELLA547, GO CHECK OUT HER ACCOUNT, FOLLOW HER, SHE'S AWESOME. I'LL REVEAL THE ANSWER IN FIVE...GO AND FOLLOW HER GUYS, IF SHE CAN GET 10 FOLLOWS, I'LL REVEAL THE ANSWER."

And he never does.

The closer he gets to exposing the location of this godforsaken crutch, the more he pads for time. There comes a point where his audience sees through the charade, and viewers drop exponentially. "I WILL TELL YOU THE ANSWER RIGHT NOW. THE CRUTCH IS RIGHT HERE, TAKE A LOOK."

The feed is cut. User Offline. Stream Ended. $20 or more has been accrued, so there's no need to wait for the minimum amount to let the bottom fall out.

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Another form of these Sisyphean ordeals is the Streamer vs. Viewer game, which was most recently oversaturated with a Minecraft version involving a cube of blocks (of a certain size and parameter) to fill a space made of bedrock. Once the space is filled, a countdown begins, moving at a molasses-covered Special Agent Oso pace to give the audience time to donate a gift that affects the in-game task at hand (typically TNT being dropped from the sky or the space itself being completely reset, depending on the monetary value).

Of course, most of the emotional aspects of something like this have to do with performative vitriol: the fact that you can see anyone succeed with the potential to knock them down without any consequences seems like a perfect exchange in an idealistic world, but it's also an immature way of thinking too. It's no wonder that this Minecraft variant drew in a lot of revenue from viewers, namely early-to-middle-aged teenagers who don't understand the correlation between the monetary value of the gifts they give and the ways that streamers can earn off them.

A much stronger comparison could be made with Twitch Bits, which do disclose their monetary value based on how many are purchased. On TikTok, in order to purchase gifts, one must purchase coins of a certain package amount that can be put towards gifts. Gifts have a certain coin value, which does not give an equal value in the currency it was purchased with. There's the exchange rate that streamers can see that viewers are unable, but for the consumers, there's a distinct lack of transparency about the money being spent and sent.

In a lot of ways, these sorts of streams feel like being on the Vegas Strip: shell game scammers, "give me $50 and I'll jump in the fountain outside Caesar's naked", showgirls who don't even work in shows and parade the streets for $10 insta-print photos; an air of expensive frivolity is inhaled and exhaled by those with lost anticipation (alongside the smell of sativa strain joints and filterless cigarettes). It's easy to perceive the idealized form of What Vegas Is as translating to the idealized form of What TikTok Streaming Is.

For every other small business owner selling 3D-printed keychains, you'll have another who claims to be a small business but dropships $2 pleather bags from AliExpress for $15. For every CustomWoodBurning and Caseoh who have influential roots in personality-driven Twitch-style streaming, you'll get Encino Man 2 and LispyJimmy screaming over a similarly Sisyphean iPad game where a bouncing ball pops balloons and doesn't get the job done for an ungodly amount of time. There's a lack of the honesty and personality that makes streaming enjoyable here. Maybe if you look into the webcam feed hard enough, you can see a dollar sign reflecting in a streamer's eye.