pump.fun的新功能，把《黑鏡》搬進了現實

Season 7, Episode 1 of Black Mirror, titled "Common People," tells this story:

Mike, a welder, and Amanda, a teacher, 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 of her brain with synthetic tissue. The surgery is free, but Amanda's life will depend on the company's servers, costing a monthly subscription fee of $300. Mike, with no other options, signs the agreement.

However, the subscription fees keep rising. When Amanda is conscious, she involuntarily plays advertisements. To secretly raise money, Mike starts live-streaming on "Dum Dummies"—a website where viewers pay to command the streamer to complete humiliating tasks.

After a coworker exposes this, Mike loses his job, and the couple is left in despair.

A year later, Mike can no longer afford the premium plan that keeps his wife alive. Amanda sleeps 16 hours a day, and when she’s briefly awake, she only broadcasts ads. Using his last savings, Mike buys 30 minutes of the premium plan, allowing Amanda to leave a final message in a moment of peace.

When the time expires, Mike ends Amanda's life. The final shot lingers on the still-streaming laptop screen as Mike, holding a utility knife, walks into the darkness.

This episode is chilling and oppressive because it portrays people forced to sacrifice their dignity to earn the right to survive. So, when pump.fun launched a new feature called "Pump.fun Go" earlier this month, many people couldn't help but think of this episode.

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

$2,600: The Price of a Forehead Tattoo

pump.fun's new feature, Pump.fun GO, allows anyone to post paid bounty tasks on the platform.

This did attract mainstream media attention, but unfortunately, it reached the public in a negative light once again.

At its peak, the token $Bountywork approached a market cap of $2.5 million. The developer behind it, @ayushquantt, focused on constantly posting new tasks on pump.fun to generate hype for the coin.

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

An Indian man actually went through with the tattoo:

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

"Getting a permanent tattoo on my forehead is something that will stay with me for life. It wasn't an easy decision, and the process itself was painful. I bled during the tattooing and had to endure the discomfort to get it done."

However, the bounty poster rejected his submission due to a typo in the task description—missing the letter 'n', the ticker was mistakenly written as $boutywork. The Indian man had followed the description exactly.

So, the next day, he went back to get the letter 'n' tattooed:

This time, he successfully claimed the bounty. $2,600: the price of a forehead tattoo. He said this money changed his life.

But he earned far more than just that $2,600. After his initial submission was rejected, someone sent him a token called $boutywork, using the mistaken tattoo as the name for the new coin.

Because the story had enough buzz, this token's cumulative trading volume exceeded $5 million. The creator of the new coin (from transaction fees) gave all the proceeds to him, so he ended up making about $48,000 in total.

And this wasn't even the highest single bounty for a forehead tattoo on pump.fun. Another bounty posted by @Perporseful also required getting a forehead tattoo, this time reading "bounty.fun." Someone completed the task on the day it was posted and successfully claimed a bounty of 200 SOL (approximately $14,000).

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

"We need the money."

Priced Freedom Easily Amplifies Darkness

The hype around the Indian man's forehead tattoo has faded, and $boutywork has largely gone to zero. But the developer of $Bountywork continues to post new bounties, trying to replicate this "success"—for example, asking someone to wear a $Bountywork t-shirt and eat three bugs on camera.

Although the bounty is only 2.5 SOL (about $178), it's not much. But in the face of "we need the money," it's hardly a problem:

To keep generating buzz for $Bountywork, @ayushquantt has spent $4,500 on various bounties. Besides the bug-eating challenge, there's also one where someone must wear a $Bountywork shirt and drink a bottle of hot sauce, with a bounty of 1.4 SOL (about $100):

However, he has also posted some more normal, even heartwarming bounties, such as donating 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 judge these actions or even the new pump.fun feature as good or bad. It's very clear that donating a $50 gift card to someone in need barely creates any buzz, while eating bugs on camera or drinking a bottle of hot sauce has a much higher chance of gaining attention.

I don't think this means "in an era where traffic is money, we've all become slaves to traffic." Freedom often reveals a raw, naked truth, and we are simply too "protected." We wouldn't get a forehead tattoo for $2,600, only because we can still tolerate a monthly salary of a few thousand dollars, venting our dissatisfaction with work and overtime in group chats and by scrolling through short videos.

The Black Mirror episode mentioned at the start has long since entered our lives. In the "wild west era" of live streaming, platforms like "Liao Liao Voice Chat" were once incredibly popular. On December 31, 2018, a streamer nicknamed "Da Fei," persuaded by the chat room host, Mr. Wang, and egged on by the audience, drank heavily again and died of sudden death after going outside. In the three months before his death, "Da Fei" was live streaming his drinking every day, earning tips by streaming himself drinking alcohol, soy sauce, and other things.

"Da Fei" drinking soy sauce

During one of his previous streams, "Da Fei" said he couldn't go on after drinking and started convulsing. The audience in the chat room just kept jeering, "Pour the vomit on your head, I'll add another $300."

Another comment read, "Looks like Liao Liao is finally going to have a death." No one expected it to become a prophecy.

Even in the more regulated live streaming environment of 2023-2024, we can still find reports of deaths caused by excessive drinking during PK battles or binge eating during mukbang streams.

"They're crazy for fame," "Why do they have to go this far for money"—these are the final legacies these streamers leave behind on the internet, some water-cooler talk that gradually disappears into the ocean of daily data updates. While regulatory standards can curb the excessive commodification of people by money, they ultimately can't stop those on pump.fun who are willing to tattoo their faces for a few thousand dollars.

Because they truly need the money.

Lights in the Darkness

Although many bounties on pump.fun feel like something out of Black Mirror or even the dark web, you can also find some things that are interesting and warming.

Organizing a rally in New York for people who resist work, promoting the idea that "work is a scam," with a bounty of $15,865. This is an activity that would get a grunt like me fired up:

Previously, the $neet community had already organized two "anti-work rallies" in the US. If this bounty is completed, it would be the third.

Show kindness to 10 strangers and make their day better. The bounty poster didn't specify how—buy them a meal, give them flowers or a book, buy them a coffee. Just tell them to have a great day. The best 5 videos will each win a $1,000 bounty:

Organize a charity food drive in your local community, providing food to at least 20 people in need, with a bounty of $1,161:

There's even a bounty for helping an old lady cross the street, worth $145:

The world is full of wonders. We cannot escape the darkness, but we hope for a little more light.