How fictional currency Dabloons became a huge TikTok trend with 1 billion views
The Dabloons trend – based on a cat-based fictional currency sometimes spelt doubloons – has exploded as a huge TikTok trend with more than 1.2 billion views of videos using the #Dabloons hashtag.
At its simplest the trend is like a giant roleplay game that involves spotting TikTok videos on your For You Page that say you've earned four or more dabloons. You keep track of the number of Dabloons you've accumulated – some people even track them on spreadsheets!
Many videos feature cat pictures in a slideshow with a caption starting "Hello traveller...". This video offering the viewer four Dabloons is by a new Dabloon-focused TikTok account called Dabloon Bank and has got more than 1.2 million views and 185,000 likes.
The Dabloons phenomenon dates back to a 2021 Instagram meme of a cat holding up four toes with the caption "4 dabloons". It was posted by @catz.jpeg – a cat memes account with 128,000 followers.
@cats.jpeg followed up with another 4 dabloons cat picture that's been used in many of the new TikToks.
The TikTok trend really took off – and got more complicated – when people started posting videos offering fictional products that the "traveller" could purchase with their Dabloons, robbery videos demanding people hand over their Dabloons, and videos giving away huge amounts of Dabloons, leading to fears of Dabloon inflation.
This example uses the original Instagram cat meme picture and asks people to donate Dabloons in comments as inflation means the cat is struggling to feed its pet chicken.
The sound used in many of the TikToks is a sped-up version of Cold Island from the game My Singing Monsters.
The word doubloon comes from the name of the gold coin used in Spain and Spanish settlements in South America in the 16th and 17th centuries, which have been much featured in pirate stories including Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. People have been posting videos of real doubloons in response to the TikTok trend – like this video with 5 million views and 650,000 likes.
How to quickly spot TikTok trends
Dabloons is just one of the new TikTok trends quickly picked up by our Buzz service, which highlights some of the big talking points emerging on TikTok and social media every day.
Buzz from Shooglebox is used by journalists and PR, marketing and creative teams who need to spot and stay on top of the latest trends.
It's a constantly updated box of cards showing at a glance, explaining and linking to viral videos, TikTok trends and other things getting people excited on social media. Buzz customers also get regular updates alerting them to some of the things they might otherwise miss or be late to the party.
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