30. Uncanny Valley of the Dolls
stream for your life - performance labor, the AI TikTok trend, and UFO clouds.
Hello dear ones! ~ I hope this missive finds you amidst rest and revelations, with pockets full of awe—illuminated by this past week’s full, blue moon. I’ve found myself a little flattened lately… sleepy and recalibrating. Strong winds have been whipping through Lisbon, notably absent from my sails. Late summer breeze has a bite, a reminder from the air that he could do colder things if he wanted to. But for now… mercy. But for now, clouds that look like they haven’t finished loading… glitches in the sky while we watch, mouth-agape, from a seaside promenade.
These clouds are called lenticular. The moisture and wind whip them into these saucer shapes. I found them beautiful and unsettling.
This month, I’ve been thinking a lot about AI, livestreaming, and performance labor.
If you’re on TikTok, you’ve probably seen the phenomenon of livestreamers behaving like NPCs (non-player characters) or AI. Popularized by a streamer called Pinkydoll—who revealed she earns thousands of dollars per stream—the trend has taken hold.
As this Vice article points out, the live gift reaction has its roots (like many things on the internet) in online sex work.
It’s actually a mesmerizing performance. Streamers do it to varying degrees of success. And there are subcategories, for example, “Mommy AI” shows a streamer with rubber gloves on, a live baby sleeps, wrapped to her chest.
“Mother and daughter AI,” “reaction queens,” and “Mermaid AI” are other variations that I’ve seen. It floods my brain with dopamine. Watching these humans behave repetitively feels like a lullaby, more soothing than ASMR. I want to fall asleep to the sound of an artificial voice saying “thank you for the roses,” ad infinitum.
It also feels deeply sad in a way I can’t yet fully explain.
And it brings me back. During the early pandemic days, I started live-streaming. I would say “thank you for the snacks!” among other effusive expressions of gratitude. The system was gamified for streamers and people watching. It was algorithmic and based on gifts and engagement, and the more engagement and gifting your stream had, the higher ranked you’d be on the “discover” page. People used “real” money to to purchase the in-app currency used to purchase gifts for streamers. BB coins all the way down.
The experience was absurd. At once comforting and alienating. I streamed myself making dinner, I streamed myself pulling Tarot cards, I streamed myself drawing botanical images, singing to karaoke versions of popular songs. What amazed me most was that viewers stuck around for the duration of these things. Unexpectedly, small, human intimacies were cultivated within this one-way mirror of a digital stage.
Ultimately, it started co-opting too much of my time. My schedule was outpacing the rest of my life, and I became obsessed with streaming longer and longer hours. The promise that someone might drop into my live and give me a huge gift kept me going. I used the value of my performance labor to play this proverbial slot machine… Holding out for that one mysterious benefactor who’d see me and drop a “love cannon” or a “motorcycle.”
Will there ever be a moment of “enough”? Or are we pretty much strapped into this ecocidal fervor that drives us to “more” and “faster” instead of “together” and “better”? People watching AI livestreams, while the world outside burns and floods, send gift after gift as performers speed up their reactions, each one trying to be the most pristine and infallible gratitude machine. Thank you for the snacks!!! Mmm ice cream, so good! We’re at a strange moment when people are also feeding actual AI programs their own written content, trying to train the computers to write like them (to act more ‘human’) so they can produce content faster— write articles and books using this panacea for the demands of modern commerce. Who will read these books? Will we train the AI to read for us too?
I can’t get over this fissure, this simultaneity. We’re training AI to write and be more “human” (for money) & we’re behaving like robots on live (for money).
Maybe the singularity doesn’t happen because we take more of our technology into us—installing cameras in our eyes, for example—but because we begin to behave in a more mechanized way. Sometimes when I’m at work, I summon something artificial inside that is, in every way, superior to me. It doesn’t tire. It’s able to morph into anything I need it to be. Thank you for the roses. Thank you for the champagne. Thank you for another day. Thank you for…everything.
If ‘uncanny valley’ is meant to describe the sensation evoked by something human-like that’s not quite human, what is the opposite of that? What do we call the soothing, mesmerizing effect of an actual human behaving in an artificial manner?
Is it because it promises us something quiet?
Like maybe, if we can perfect our robot-ness, Death will pass us over and forget to take us.
Creative Updates:
I have two poems published in Scrawl Place, a journal for place-based writing. To my writing and traveling friends, this journal does pay (35 dollars per piece!), so I definitely recommend sending in your work. <3
Prose poem: Miradouro de Santa Catarina
Prose poem: Miradouro do Monte Agudo
Also so excited to share this call for submissions on a theme that is so close to my heart! Full details of the call can be found here.
More soon! Wishing my U.S. readers a happy Labor Day. xx
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As always, thank you for spending a slice of your day with me and my words. This monthly offering will always be free! <3 If you would like to further support my writing life and creative endeavors, you can subscribe to my paid tier, or send a contribution via Venmo (duffylala). Heaps of love, and see you next month!
"I can’t get over this fissure, this simultaneity. We’re training AI to write and be more “human” (for money) & we’re behaving like robots on live (for money)." yep, omg
also so excited for THE HOLY HOUR! <3