The first episode of Season 7 of Black Mirror, "Common People," tells a story like this:

Welder Mike and teacher Amanda are a loving couple trying to conceive. Unfortunately, Amanda is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

The tech company Rivermind proposes a solution: replace the damaged part with synthetic brain tissue. The surgery is free, but Amanda's life thereafter will depend on the company's servers, with a monthly subscription fee of $300. Mike, with no other options, signs the agreement.

However, the subscription fee continues to rise, and when Amanda is awake, she unintentionally interrupts with advertisements. To secretly raise money, Mike starts live streaming on the "Dum Dummies" platform — a site that allows viewers to pay to instruct the streamer to perform various humiliating tasks.

After this is exposed by colleagues, Mike loses his job, and the couple falls into despair.

A year later, Mike can no longer afford the premium service to sustain his wife's life, and Amanda sleeps 16 hours a day; when she occasionally wakes, she only announces advertisements. Using his last savings, Mike buys 30 minutes of the premium service, allowing Amanda to leave a final message in a brief moment of clarity.

When the time is up, Mike personally ends Amanda's life. The final shot freezes on a laptop screen still live streaming, as Mike, holding a craft knife, walks into darkness.

It is chilling and oppressive that a person is forced to sell their dignity in exchange for the right to continue living. So, when pump.fun launched a new feature called "Pump.fun Go" earlier this month, many unconsciously linked it to this episode.

The story of Black Mirror is not far from our lives; it has even entered our lives.

$2,600 is the price for a tattoo on the forehead

The new pump.fun feature, pump fun GO, allows anyone to post paid bounty tasks on pump.fun.

This indeed attracted mainstream media attention, but unfortunately, it did so in a negative light.

$Bountywork, this currency, once reached a market value close to $2.5 million. Its developer @ayushquantt specializes in continuously posting new tasks on pump.fun to create hype for this currency.

He indeed succeeded — by offering a bounty of 40 SOL (about $2,600) for someone to tattoo $bountywork on their forehead.

An Indian man actually went and got the tattoo:

When submitting the video of his entire tattoo process, he wrote:

"Getting a permanent design on my forehead will be with me for life. This was not an easy decision, and the tattooing process itself was very painful. I bled during the tattoo, and I had to endure discomfort to finish."

But his submission was rejected by the bounty poster due to a typo in the description — they omitted an "n", incorrectly writing the ticker as $boutywork. This Indian man had followed the description's requirements exactly.

So, on the next day, he went to get the letter "n" tattooed:

This time he successfully received the bounty. $2,600 is the price for a tattoo on the forehead, and he said this money changed his life.

But he earned much more than just that $2,600. After his first submission for bounty review was rejected, someone sent him a coin called $boutywork, named after the incorrect tattoo.

Because this incident generated enough attention, this coin's total trading volume exceeded $5 million, and the income from the new coin's creators (transaction fees) went to him, allowing him to earn about $48,000 in total.

And this wasn't even the highest individual bounty you could earn for a tattoo on pump.fun. Another bounty task posted by @Perporseful also required a forehead tattoo that said "bounty.fun", and on the day the task was posted, someone completed it and successfully received a bounty of 200 SOL (about $14,000).

When submitting his proof of tattoo to pass the bounty review, his note was simple:

"We need money."

The price of freedom makes darkness magnify

The hype around the Indian man's forehead tattoo incident has passed, and $boutywork has practically gone to zero. But the developer of $Bountywork continues to release new bounties in an attempt to replicate this "success," such as asking someone to wear a shirt with $Bountywork printed on it and eat three bugs in front of the camera.

Though the bounty is only 2.5 SOL (about $178), which is not lucrative, it's hardly a challenge compared to "we need money":

To continually generate traffic for the $Bountywork coin, @ayushquantt has already spent $4,500 on various bounties. In addition to the bug-eating challenge above, there's also one asking for someone to drink a bottle of hot sauce wearing a $Bountywork shirt, with a bounty of 1.4 SOL (about $100):

But he has also posted some more normal or even heartwarming bounty tasks, such as giving a $50 gift card to someone in need in the name of $Bountywork, with a bounty of 1.5 SOL (about $107):

It's hard to evaluate the goodness or badness of such behavior or even the pump.fun feature itself. It's evident that giving a $50 gift card to someone in need barely creates a stir in terms of traffic, but the likelihood of getting attention from eating bugs or drinking hot sauce is much higher.

I don't think this means "In an age where traffic equals money, we have all become slaves to traffic." Freedom often reflects a kind of nakedness, and you and I are perhaps just too well "protected." We wouldn't want to get a tattoo on our foreheads for $2,600 simply because we can still endure earning a monthly salary of several thousand dollars, venting our dissatisfaction with work and overtime in group chats and while scrolling short videos.

The Black Mirror episode mentioned at the beginning of the article has long since entered reality. During the ‘wild era’ of live streaming, "Chat" was once a popular platform. On December 31, 2018, a streamer with the username "Big Fly" was persuaded by the chat room owner to drink heavily again, and amidst the crowd's cheers, he died of a heart attack after leaving the house drunk. "Big Fly" had been live streaming drinking every day for three months prior, earning tips by drinking alcohol and even cooking oil.

"Big Fly" drinking cooking oil

In one of "Big Fly's" previous live streams, he mentioned that he couldn't continue and started to convulse after drinking. At that time, the viewers in the chat room were still egging him on, saying, "Pour the vomit on your head, and I'll add $300." One even said, "Looks like someone is finally going to die." Little did they expect that it would indeed come true.

Even in 2023-2024, in an increasingly mature regulatory environment for live streaming, we can still find many cases of death due to excessive drinking or binge eating during live streams.

"Desperate to be famous," "Why bother to earn some money," this is the last legacy left by these streamers on the internet, a bit of gossip for after meals, and then gradually disappearing in the ever-updating data of the internet. Regulatory norms indeed can curb the excessive objectification of people by money, but ultimately cannot stop those willing to get a tattoo on their faces for a few thousand dollars on pump.fun.

Because they truly need money.

A light in the darkness

Although many bounties on pump.fun resemble Black Mirror and the dark web, there are also some interesting and heartwarming things to be found.

Organizing a rally in New York for people resisting work, promoting that "work is a scam," with a bounty of $15,865. This is an uplifting event for those of us feeling like cattle:

Previously, the $neet community had spontaneously organized two offline "Not Working Gatherings" in the U.S., and if this bounty is completed, it will be the third.

Releasing goodwill to ten strangers to make their day better. The bounty poster did not specify the method; buying them a meal, giving them flowers, gifting books, or buying them coffee are all acceptable. Telling them to be happy today, the best five videos can each receive a bounty of $1,000:

Organizing a community food donation in your local area, providing food to at least 20 people in need, with a bounty of $1,161:

There’s even a bounty for helping an elderly woman cross the street, with a bounty of $145:

In this vast world, there is no end to the wonders. We cannot escape the darkness, and we only wish for more light.

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