I hadn’t thought about the Kofi banner thing, and this is anecdotal though my experience, but upon seeing that mentioned my mind immediately jumped to the Steam Workshop; at least with some of the games I play, it’s very common to see some form of “Donate”.
Setting that aside, the thought occurred to me of somehow tying something we’re all used to seeing and interacting with - usernames - into something that if one were so inclined, could interact with somehow to pull up something like a QR code to their “donate box” of choice.
I have no idea how it’d be actually implemented, but it doesn’t seem impossible that something like that could allow for both traditional fiat payments, crypto, or even links to “Yoder’s Rent-a-goat”. I mean, I’d work for a goat as payment, so why not.
QR codes themselves are pretty visually meaningless, and that physical step of the user having to scan it would be that “fully intentional” aspect that’d keep things from being somewhat predatory (thinking in-app payment type stuff).
<shrug> I have no skin in this game, so just thinking out loud on this, is all.
As much as I dislike TikTok and short-form video in general, I really don’t think this falls on TikTok. The idea of middle-schoolers discovering they can choke themselves out has been around as a “thing” since at least the late 90s.
We knew it as the “Space Monkey”. And yeah, the whole idea was to chokehold yourself until you nearly/did pass out. I suspect it has more to do with the timing of learning things like biology, and the immaturity of middle schoolers finding the idea of blacking out to be funny.