This Tuesday evening, around a hundred people connected to Jahdoll’s live performance on TikTok. This woman with long blond hair topped with an eared headband stares at the screen. She sways slightly to a soundtrack. His performance is particularly intriguing for the uninitiated. She does not speak, except to thank her audience, indifferent to the sarcastic written messages sent by many users of the application. “Don’t listen to people, do what you please,” defends one of the spectators. Like many TikTokers, Jahdoll engages in an imitation, that of an NPC, those secondary characters in video games that users cannot direct. A confusing exercise, popularized last year by Fedha Sinon, aka PinkyDoll, from Montreal. On TikTok, used by 21 million French people each month, according to company figuresyou can also follow complete strangers live peeling potatoes or eating.
Crazy videos that can pay off big. For a handful of content creators, the company of Chinese origin, and the first non-American social network with global influence, has indeed become a cash machine. “It allows them to earn a lot of money, probably more than 10,000 euros per month,” assesses socialist deputy Arthur Delaporte. A good fortune due to the ingenuity of the company. TikTok invites its users to playfully exchange virtual gifts during these live broadcasts, or during “matches”. These games of a few minutes allow TikTokers to challenge each other in duels, often unspectacular. Through the screen split in two, applicants can both relax and ignore each other, each addressing their community separately, with their eyes fixed on the progress bar showing who is the most supported. To send a gift, it’s simple, just buy coins. Count 4.15 euros for 350 coins, 205 euros for 17,500. These tokens are then transformed into gifts, which appear on the screen in the form of a small animation, for example a rose or a lion. Once given, the gifts are transformed into diamonds in the pocket of the recipient, who can then change them into euros.
In mid-January, around 10:30 p.m., the daily ranking of TikTokers engaged in matches is about to be reset to zero. L’Epicier has thirty minutes left to climb the rankings. From his room, black cap and sunglasses on his head, he alternates between calls to tap on his screen to send “hearts” and spades to his opponent. In front of him, Tracy, a young woman sipping a soda. “We are 15k from the Top5, that’s the goal, a ‘Universe’ is 45k,” harangues L’Epicier. Translation: to succeed in his challenge – finishing after a day of live broadcast in fifth place in the daily ranking – he suggests to his supporters to spend 45,000 coins, or 535 euros, for this virtual gift, the most expensive of the platform. At 11 p.m., disappointment. The Grocer “only” finished seventh. “Friends, I’m going to go eat, I’m very tired, I’m resting tonight and tomorrow I’ll come back,” he slips before leaving his seat.
The juicy TikTok business
The real winner of the game is obviously called TikTok. According to a Senate report published in the spring, the company pockets more money than with advertising. In fact, it takes its tithe on the purchase of the coins, then on the conversion of the diamonds into euros during the disbursement. His commission, opaque, would be 50%. A model very far from that of its competitors, Facebook or Instagram, which sell advertisers in-depth knowledge of their users. This strategy is proving extremely lucrative for TikTok. As noted by the consulting firm Data. HAVE, the company has risen to the level of mobile gaming applications, those which until now captured the most money from their users. According to its calculations, it recorded 3.8 billion dollars in revenue with this concept for the year 2023. Which could make the social network “the most profitable mobile application of all time”, predicts Lexi Sydow, the marketing director of Data. HAVE.
Not all TikTok users are looking to make a fortune. Luka, 19, receives around 5 euros per month in gifts. “It’s not much,” he admits, especially highlighting the good atmosphere on the social network. For Loïc, a young 25-year-old father and part-time animal salesman, the amounts are larger, while remaining modest. A few weeks ago, he earned several hundred euros in three days thanks to his live game – he films himself while playing Minecraft. “The donations sent by TikTok users have an impact on the part that I do live, it creates an interaction,” he explains.
Apparently harmless, this gift economy is criticized for several reasons. First of all, it does not allow content creators to live that well. The good fortune of a few masks the reality of a rather poor sector. Overall, 75% of the 150,000 French content creators earn less than 10,000 euros per year, estimates the Reech marketing agency. These digital donations must also be declared to the tax authorities. “They are then taxed at 60%, a rate which makes no sense,” regrets lawyer Raphaël Molina.
“I made matches, now it no longer interests me,” confesses Béatrice Dubau, aka Latiktokeuse869. According to this Frenchwoman, duels would give pride of place to alliance strategies. For example, a TikToker will give large gifts to a second to help him climb the rankings before the latter returns the favor the following week, a way of gaining visibility and subsequently attracting potential donors.
“TikTok matches amazes me”
For Carine Fernandez, the founder of the influence agency Point d’orgue, TikTok is also suffering from the retraining of dubious influencers, previously specialized in dropshipping. This practice of selling a product that is then purchased directly from a manufacturer is not illegal. But it is widely criticized because it is synonymous with excessive margins and non-existent quality controls.
Finally, the recruitment of minors in this round of gifts worries the legislator. “The matches amazes me. At the same time, I understand that one can become addicted. But my subject is not morality, it is the health of children,” warns MP Arthur Delaporte. The elected official believes that access to these matches should be prohibited to young people. Which are not supposed to be able to offer or receive gifts, we remind you at TikTok.
Certainly, all social networks have difficulty protecting their minor users. Both for good reasons – they do not want to check age in a too intrusive way – and for other less admissible reasons – young people are their customers of tomorrow. But only TikTok exposes them so much to the temptation to spend money.
“TikTok is the platform for creativity and entertainment,” recalls Emilie Hoëllard, lecturer in management sciences at the University of Le Havre. Initially focused on music and dance, the social network knows how to stimulate the imagination, with content that can break through thanks to the magic of its algorithm. Thanks to short videos, the latter very quickly learns to identify users’ interests, which makes them want to stay on the application but quickly locks them in a bubble. A mechanism that gives rise to fairy tales, like that of Charli D’Amelio who became a dancing star on TikTok. But also to disturbing comebacks. Jawad Bendaoud, the Ile-de-France resident convicted for having hosted two of the jihadists who carried out the attacks of November 13, 2015, has made himself a “celebrity” again with his imitations of video game NPCs. A mix of genres that makes you dizzy.
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