Animated lions and tango with a stool

How tickcers earn in the war of Russia and Ukraine

In July 2021, in the application with short Tiktok videos, the battles mode appeared - direct broadcasts, within the framework of which tickcers compete with each other for paid gifts from the audience. At first, bloggers competed with each other with songs and dances. Now they are battered in military uniforms with the flags of the warring countries (from Russia and Ukraine - to Israel and Palestine) and earn on this at 100 thousand rubles in five minutes of broadcast.

I figured out how these battles are arranged, who watches them and who earns on such content.

Half of the screen of my phone is occupied by a man in military uniform, on the sleeve of the Russian flag, on the face - Balaklava. In the Tiktok application, he talks about rest in Crimea and how good it became there after the annexation of the Peninsula of Russia. On the other half of the screen, a fair -haired girl against the backdrop of the Ukrainian flag interrupts the opponent and includes the song of the group “SPIV BRAND” - “Moscow ZGORILA I ANTOME”. Several thousand people look at this ether, they send hearts to the man who fill the entire screen and send the girl roses - they appear at the bottom of the frame. This is their future salary.

How do the battles work?

The more virtual gifts the audience sends a blogger, the faster a strip of reactions on his page is filled. To win, the blogger must fill the scale faster than the opponent. Spectators can just touch the screen to send likes to the tickler. They also help the blogger win, but work less efficiently than gifts.

Battle lasts five minutes, during this time you can send several gifts: the application allows you to buy them directly on the ether page. Gifts are paid animated pictures. Spectators can give a blogger a small rose or send a whole animated lion, which will run along the screen during the air.

The cheapest gift costs 17 rubles, the most expensive - 83 thousand (about $ 880 at the current rate).

The loser in Battle Tiktokier does not lose everything that he earned during the broadcast. All the gifts received by the blogger are converted into the inner currency of the application - diamonds. When Tiktoker accumulates the amount of diamonds equal to 100 dollars on the balance sheet, Tiktok allows the funds to withdraw funds in any currency to the PayPal payment system or to a bank card.

At first, when the battles just appeared, the competitions between bloggers looked harmless: some tickcers shot battles with songs of competing performers, others simply compared different cultural phenomena. For example, the fans of the singer Taylor Swift battered with the fans of the singer Lord, and the Fans of Barcelona - with the Real Madrid fans. But soon politics came to such streams, and battles began to appear in Tiktok between bloggers who took the air under the flags of different countries - for example, Armenia and Turkey (such battles existed even before the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan). After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the exacerbation of the conflict in Nagorno -Karabakh and the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, such broadcasts became many times more popular.

Tiktok moderators initially blocked the accounts with political content or sent them to a shadow ban - in this case, the video published by the user cease to get into the recommendations, they cannot be found according to hashtags, and in the account the audience activity is significantly reduced. But along with the increase in the average age of Tiktok users, the near -political content became more popular, and the moderators began to ban it less often. Such content still requires great accuracy (as the correspondent found out during the preparation of this material, some links to accounts with similar broadcasts turn out to be non-working-probably the application hides them), but now it is more difficult to get into the ban. It is noteworthy that Tiktok’s user agreement is most vaguely formulated which video about politics can be blocked by moderators: the application only prohibits “discrimination on the basis of nationality” and content discovering social groups “on the grounds of political views”.

How much do thictatox earn in the war of Russia and Ukraine

After the start of a full -scale war in Ukraine, the battles with each other began to shoot Russian and Ukrainian bloggers. They look different. For example, two men in camouflage sing the song by Akim Apachev “Summer and crossbows” about “Wagner”, who “will drive up”. Two dressed in black shirts of men sitting against the background of the Ukrainian flag battered with them. They laugh at the rival, because of the singing of men in the camouflage of the replicas of opponents are not heard.

During another broadcast, a girl with a heart in the colors of the Ukrainian flag in the right corner of the screen calls for the audience to buy gifts so that she wins in Battle and “bent the lads to the thermal imager”.

A guy in a balaclava and in camouflage with a patch in the form of a Russian tricolor, who smiles and screams that "the loser crouches," was battered against her. The loser in Battle often fulfills the desire of the winner, for example, stands in the bar, enters the shower in clothes, squats or squeezes. Sometimes the Tiktlo -Tiktlo won in the political battles can turn on the anthem of his country, while the opponent must turn off his microphone, listen and not disconnect from the air.

Whatever the tickcers are doing during such broadcasts, they always bathe against the background of the flags of Russia, Ukraine or Belarus (bloggers from Belarus, whose broadcasts we looked, while performing on the side of Russia). They constantly ask the audience to send them gifts, referring to patriotism and assistance to the country, and argue about the military conflict.

One of the bloggers actively participating in such battles is Tiktokore with the nickname @mikheevs. He has 40 thousand subscribers. The blogger laid out the first Tiktoki at the end of September 2022 - in them he talked about his friends and danced with a naked torso. But already in October, Mikheev began to draw Russian flags on his body and remove patriotic content. If on one of the first videos, Tiktoker asks who is ready to be friends with him, then at the end of October he already asks the question: “Would they be friends with me, learning that I am Russian?”

Now Tiktoker is almost daily battered “for Russia” with other bloggers. Despite the fact that the guy is often removed in Khaki and Telnyashka's clothes, he is not related to the Russian armed forces. As we know, under the nickname @mikheevs, a 27-year-old resident of Chelyabinsk Yegor Mikheev is hiding. He really once served in the army: we found photographs of Yegor in the form of a military intelligence chevron and demobilian shoulder straps. Now Yegor is a civilian. On Instagram, he uploads a video how he travels to Chelyabinsk on his Priora, photos in which he smokes a hookah, and a story from travels-this year Mikheev traveled to Egypt, Novosibirsk, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Until last spring, the man actively posted photos from the football field - Mikheev played for the Chelyabinsk football club Avangard, which, judging by the club’s instagram, performed in an amateur football league.

We tried to contact Yegor in different ways - he read the request for an interview, but ignored it. The man also did not answer the calls and messages.

We tried to contact other bloggers from this segment performing in the battles on the side of Russia. Tiktlo, Eduard Mashtaller, Ivan Mayurov and Evgeny Goncharov, ignored our messages with a request for an interview.

It is difficult to evaluate how much Mikheev earns on the battles. For two battles for five minutes, which we looked, Mikheev earned about 80 thousand rubles: during each of them he received gifts with a total cost of about 40 thousand rubles.

Since May 2023, Mikheev was aired with the Ukrainian Tiktokoresh Yana (@yana.2023). As I managed to find out, it is from the city of Konotop of the Sumy region. In 2014, the girl graduated from the ninth grade, in 2017-the Roma Higher Professional School. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Yana left for Germany.

During the battles with Mikheev, the girl usually sits against the backdrop of a Ukrainian flag with a wreath on her head. 43 thousand people were signed to Yana’s account, her other account with 57 thousand subscribers, from which she began to go on the air with Mikheev in May, was removed in the same month. Yana removes the battles with other Russian tiktockers - whether they are military uniforms or just sitting against the backdrop of Russian tricolor users. As Yana says, the Russian tickcers themselves find her and offer to be blurred, "because she is a famous blogger." “They write to me in Tiktok as zombie, we argue with them, and one Moskal even removed his Russian flag during Battle, I convinced it. These people have been listening to Putin's propaganda for decades, so I am trying to convey something to them. Russians are engaged in propaganda in Tiktok, and I decided to support Ukraine and dispel the myths of the Muscovites. I want to show that we are free people that they will not break us. Due to my Tiktok, many people learned about us, Ukrainians, ”she answered the questions of Novy-Europe.

On air, the girl, like Mikheev, comes out daily - in the evening. How much she earns a month on such content, Yana refused to speak.

During the battles, which we looked during the preparation of the material, the girl received gifts for 25 thousand rubles. But Tiktokershi has a video in the account with how she is given more expensive gifts - for example, an animated lion for 30 thousand rubles. According to the girl, the money earned on the battles, she also spends the assistance of the Ukrainian military: “I help our military, also helping on an oncomal child, people from other countries began to support me in this, to send money from there,” the blogger says. In her telegram channel, Yana posted a video on which a man in Ukrainian military uniform, standing near a car with Slovak numbers, thanks Tiktokoresh in Ukrainian for “help in collecting funds for car repair”. The girl also announced the fundraising for an operation to remove the spinal lipoma for Ukrainian teenager Kirill Maksimenko.

Yana and Yegor at the end of Battle often make strange desires to each other: Yana, having lost Yegor, once shaved half the eyebrow, and Yegor, having lost Yana, danced tango with a stool. In personal telegram channels, bloggers insult each other, compare with the homeless and ridicule the appearance-apparently, so they support the excitement around the broadcasts.

One of the most successful bloggers of the political segment is the pro -Russian Tiktlo with the nickname @chuprygin. The Chups account, as Tiktokore calls himself, is signed by 280 thousand people. The blogger began to lead the first streams in April 2023. Now he is battting every day - in the evening, and sometimes in the morning. In addition, in the framework of one broadcast, Chupa holds several rounds in a row - for example, on October 15 he held 16 rounds, and on October 22, within the framework of one battles, all with the same yana from Konotop - already 30 rounds. In addition to her, the blogger goes on the air with other Ukrainian bloggers. During the battles, Chupa often receives expensive gifts worth about 30 thousand rubles.

During one of the latest broadcasts, Jan and Chup played wishes and actively argued. Chupa told Yana that she “has no hope” that Ukraine would win in the war. “I believe that we will win, that we are irrelevant,” answered Yana. “We will still see,” Chupa argued. This is a standard level of discussion for five -minute battles.

Chupa lives in Belarus - probably in Gomel. In the youth’s account there is a video from one of the Gomel gymnasiums, as well as from the hostel of the Gomel State Technical University. Although the young man is battered in military uniform, there are no chevrons on it. In his Instagram, the blogger publishes photos from shopping centers during the fitting of merchants with Alexander Lukashenko.

Such political battles look from a couple of hundred to five thousand people. In the chat, people usually write patriotic comments - “Russia, forward” or “Peremoga wake us up.” During the preparation of this material, we found eight Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Tiktok-bloggers, which regularly participate in such battles, five of them constantly go to the air with each other.

Other conflicts

Tickcers earn not only in the war of Russia and Ukraine, but also on other conflicts. For example, Tiktoker from Turkey with nickname @mrbrick_36 battles with tiktockers from Greece. In these international broadcasts, earnings are about the same as in the Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to bathe for your country. So, bloggers from Greece supported Armenia against the backdrop of a recent exacerbation in Nagorno -Karabakh, and users from Turkey were broadcast with the flags of Azerbaijan.

Ethers with the confrontation of ticklers supporting Israel, and bloggers performing on the side of the Arab countries, appeared along with the battles regime, until the last exacerbation of the conflict. For example, at the end of 2022, the battles arranged tickcers with nicknames @jrbaldwiniv and @1salahaddinyubi1 with each other. The first Tiktlo was presented as Christian Power (“Christian power”), he was battered under the flag of Israel in a crusader's costume. Its opponent used the name Sword of ̇SLAM ("Sword of Islam") and battered in Kufiya. After the Hamas attack to the south of Israel, such straps became even more popular. Tiktotoxes are broadcast in national costumes or with the flags of Israel and Palestine and alternately include folk songs.

For example, a blogger from Georgia with the nickname @tsagarsons, whose account 754 thousand people are signed, is aired several times a day with people at once from several countries. The blogger supports the policy of the USA, Greece, Israel, Georgia and even Tajikistan. During the battles, Tiktlo screams and interrupts opponents, he does not lead any discussion. During the last Battle of Tiktoker, who looked at the correspondent, the blogger shouted: “God, bless Israel!” (God bless israel). His opponent with an intricate nickname @hajk0o ._. 88 C 440 thousand subscribers answered: “You have a small penis”. The air was watched by 44 thousand people.