A Greek shipper has pleaded guilty to a charge over it smuggling sanctioned Iranian crude oil and agreed to pay a $2.4 million fine

Highly-anticipated reforms of UK pensions could channel billions of pounds into fast-growing companies and boost investments in riskier

Barcelona winger Raphinha will miss up to a month with a hamstring injury, according to...

Money-saving measures are announced by President Lazarus Chakwera following IMF funding.

TV’s late-night hosts planned to return to their regular evening sketches and monologues as the flow of topical humor is set to return after five silent months due to the just-ended Hollywood writers strike

A baffling clip of a woman on a TikTok live stream licking the air and saying “Ice cream so good” while using a straightener to pop single kernels of popcorn has gone viral and people are confused. By now, we all know the internet is filled with weird and wonderful things, but sometimes there are viral videos that are particularly odd and require an explanation. One such video includes a TikTok live video made by @pinkydollreal, who appears to be a 19-year-old Montreal-based user. In it, she appeared to be repeating words like, “yes, yes, yes”, “slay” and “ice cream so good”, while also receiving payments, or “gifts”, from users watching in real-time. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The bizarre clip was shared on Twitter along with the caption, “Any time I accidentally happen upon a TikTok live, I feel like I am watching the world end” and was viewed millions of times, before the person deleted it, explaining they didn’t want @pinkydollreal to receive hate. But, other people have also been sharing the TikToker's content, with one person calling it the “weirdest thing I’ve seen [on TikTok] by far”. What is @pinkydollreal’s content and why does it appear “weird”? The content that TikToker is producing is part of a genre called NPC, or non-playable character. The reference comes from video games and refers to characters that feature but are unable to be controlled by the person playing the game. The niche genre on TikTok sees users like @pinkydollreal imitating an NPC by repeating many of the same phrases and movements in a way that appears programmed and looped. Their behaviour has set patterns and the person rarely deviates from a handful of sayings or actions to imitate a programmed character. Some people pay NPC TikTokers because the content can be considered a fetish. While the content is not overtly sexual, with no nudity or sexual langue, some who are attracted to certain things may find it arousing. Instagram sexual educator Emerson Karsh explained to InsideHook: “A fetish is a little bit more specialized. It’s attraction or arousal or sexual stimulation to certain stimuli, especially if it’s non-sexual. So, like non-sexual body parts, or inanimate objects or non-sexual situations.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Warner Bros Discovery named Mark Thompson as CEO of CNN on Wednesday, tasking the former New York Times

The United States women’s national team returns to action for the first time since their World Cup round of 16 exit, hosting Colombia in two October friendlies.

Central bank officials around the world relayed a somewhat unified message this week to the global economy: Inflation is coming down, but the battle is far from won.

Andrew Tate's interviews have consistently courted controversy among his critics

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SpaceX's satellite internet venture Starlink posted a more than six-fold surge in revenue last year to $1.4 billion,