TikTok sellers are using AI-generated Black women and other synthetic personas to sell dropshipped goods as if they came from struggling small businesses, The Verge reported on May 30. One account presented a crying woman named Aliyah selling handmade belt buckles, while identical buckles appeared on Shein for a fraction of the price. The videos repeat across accounts with changed names, products, faces, and scripts. Some avatars pretend to work fairs, answer comments, or endure racist insult, then send viewers toward Shopify-style stores.

The machinery depends on a fast moral reflex. Viewers are asked to support a vulnerable maker before they have time to check the product, the store, or the person. Researchers quoted by The Verge describe the practice as digital blackface because racial identity becomes a costume for extracting money. The scam is effective because short-form video rewards immediate feeling and punishes verification. A tear, a handmade claim, a small-business story, and a buy link can travel together before the viewer notices the white hands holding the product, the repeated background, or the missing person behind the face. Platform commerce turns solidarity into a checkout path, and the invented seller disappears once the payment clears.