TikTok LIVE gifts feel like presents but pay like rent, study of African creators finds

A new study of TikTok LIVE creators in Nigeria and Kenya finds that virtual gifting operates as a hybrid value form: it feels like receiving gifts, yet its underlying architecture resembles rent extraction by the platform. The research, published in SN Social Sciences, combined a survey of 384 entrepreneur-creators with 20 semi-structured interviews to examine how creators in two markets with contrasting payout infrastructures understand the income they earn from live-streaming.

TikTok LIVE gifting converts viewers’ virtual presents into creator income through a chain of platform-set conversions. Little has been known about how creators in African markets interpret that income, and the study set out to test whether gifting is gift-like in experience but rent-like in structure.

The survey results, which the authors treat as exploratory and correlational, showed that perceived gift-commodity hybridity was weakly and negatively associated with perceived platform rent extraction, with a standardized coefficient of −0.18. Aspirational labor orientation, by contrast, was weakly and positively associated with hybridity, at β = 0.18.

Precarity followed a more specific pattern. The share of a creator’s income drawn from gifting, rather than total income, was associated with all three dimensions of creator precarity measured in the study. Latent profile analysis identified a dual-logic profile covering 38% of respondents, suggesting a substantial subgroup holds both gift and payment framings simultaneously.

The interviews, which carry the study’s main inferential weight, complicated a straightforward misrecognition account. Rather than being deceived about the nature of gifting, creators described holding gift and payment meanings at once and knowingly, treating virtual presents as both social tokens and wages.

Participants also reconstructed the platform’s commission informally because TikTok never disclosed it. Without an official figure for the effective creator share after currency conversions, creators worked out the cut themselves, underscoring the opacity of the conversion chain that turns viewer spending into creator earnings.

The interviews further revealed an embodied precarity that the survey model did not capture. Creators reported vocal strain, physical injury and the absence of sick pay, consequences of live-streaming labor that income-based measures alone fail to register.

The authors argue that these findings give regulators and creator advocates grounds to require disclosure of the effective creator share after all currency conversions, and to establish due process for account restrictions. Because the survey analyses are correlational and the sample was recruited through purposive and snowball sampling, the findings describe patterns among these creators rather than establishing causal effects across the wider creator economy.

Subject of Research: TikTok LIVE gifting, value and precarity among entrepreneur-creators in Nigeria and Kenya

Article Title: Gift or rent? TikTok LIVE gifting, value, labor and precarity among entrepreneur-creators in Africa

Article References: Ameh, S. S., Ogor, U. C., Nworie, C. S., Anorue, H. C., Momoh, T. N., Chukwunonye, A., Oguche, I., & Anorue, I. L. (2026). Gift or rent? TikTok LIVE gifting, value, labor and precarity among entrepreneur-creators in Africa. SN Social Sciences, 6(11), Article 587. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01890-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01890-y

Keywords: TikTok LIVE, creator economy, gifting, platform labor, precarity, Nigeria, Kenya, rent extraction, mixed methods, digital labor, social media income, Gift