[imagesource: KnowYourMeme]

TikTok is precisely the place where a niche in-joke rapidly becomes an immersive roleplaying game within a matter of days.

You might have come across a strange-looking cat somewhere on the internet with an outstretched paw, four little toes sticking out, and the caption ‘4 dabloons’ – based on the 16th-century Spanish coin known as a “doubloon”  – which is either an offer or a demand.

This cat has become a merchant, aiding weary travellers (you or anyone watching) on a perilous journey, but first, you have to pay the cat four dabloons – the fictional currency that has expanded into a full-on economy on what is now being dubbed DabloonTok.

Welcome. Turn back now if you must.

KnowYourMeme tracks this phenomenon back to the “4 dabloons cat” single meme, which then morphed into a four-panel meme by October this year (see below), which then riffed on common video game tropes all over TikTok, per The Verge:

Now you’ll find entire accounts created to be shops, mafia headquarters, and government watchdogs for this DabloonTok-verse, complete with dabloonionaires, dabloon pirates, dabloon lotteries, dabloon debt, a dabloon IRS, dabloon inflation, and eventually a full-blown dabloon revolution.

It is a collaborative, loosely structured role-playing game, so users graciously pay a fictitious currency to eat fictitious food, stay in a fictitious bed, and admit defeat when fictitiously attacked by fictitious bandits.

You earn dabloons simply by coming across a video giving you some and you lose dabloons and assets when you come across a video demanding such:

pic.twitter.com/PzmSvUUGEz

— Matilda Boseley (@MatildaBoseley) November 25, 2022

@mafiadabloon You should join #dabloon #dabloonscat #dabloonmafia #dablooncat #cat #fyp ♬ Elevator Music – Bohoman

The Guardian explains:

Anyone can make a dabloon gifting or sale video, there’s no database that tracks how many you have or what you buy, and there is no external website that creates or regulates them.

In fact, there’s really nothing stopping you from just saying that you have ten billion doubloons in your pretend bank account , but with no tangible benefits besides whimsey, if you choose to cheat, then you’re only really cheating yourself.

Except now people are taking the nonsensical humour and whimsy seriously:

Most tracked their dabloon count in their phone’s notes app, but within a day or two, the economy became so complex that collectors such as 21-year-old Allexis Dorsey needed a spreadsheet to record her income.

“It ended up with me and my roommate, sitting there for like four hours … playing with our spreadsheets,” she said.

Looks like low-key work to me:

@lightningmcqueenplacemat Replying to @allexiswith2ls spreadsheet update she’s a dabillionaire…but i’m a broke dablooniversity student #dabloons #dabloontok #dablooncat ♬ original sound – ren ☀️

Since anyone and everyone has the power to mint their own coins, inflation started to become a problem:

“It started as a fun little way to get soup, cakes, and maybe a blanket. It quickly spiralled into massive inflation,” Woodard laments. “People were giving out infinite dabloons and such … I saw someone selling a bowl of soup for 10 dabloons! What happened to 4?”

In an attempt to reinstitute order, users introduced dabloon FBI and IRS to implement new rules, such as capping the maximum dabloons bequeathments to 100 per video:

@dabloonshq NEWS ON DABLOON INFLATION! | #dabloons #dabloon #dablooncat #dablooninflation #dabloonstocks #freedabloons #BetheReasonVisa #IntuitTouchdownDance #AEHolidayCard #fyp ♬ original sound – dabloons HQ

@dabloons_news Signing off. ️#dabloons #Dabloonnews #dabloonscat #dabloongovernment #stopdablooninflation #dabloonpurge #dabloonelection #fyp ♬ original sound – DabloonNews

And suddenly the economic climate and the real world that you are trying to escape because you miss being five and playing silly games is back again.

Cue the dabloon anti-capitalist revolution:

“I hate that people introduced late-stage capitalism into this beautiful world,” they say. “To be honest, it’s why I joined the revolution.”

“We have a secret base where the revolutionaries gather, and we’ve been collecting resources and weapons to prepare. Some have donated their fighter jets, guard dogs, armour, and recently some dragons.”

@rekis_board I WILL BRING PEACE FREEDOM AND JUSTICE #dabloons #dabloonscat #dabloonrevolution #dabloonrebelion #IntuitTouchdownDance ♬ original sound – SingingMonstersHelp

I don’t suppose this will last long. Nothing on the internet ever does.

And honestly, the gamification of social media is fun until it becomes too real.

[source:guardian&verge]