AI-generated avatars posing as Black small-business owners are being used to sell mass-produced Shein products at roughly four times their retail price on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. One of the most prominent accounts, an avatar named Aliyah hawking handmade belt buckles, has 40,000 followers and a single video with 6.5 million views, 814,000 likes, and nearly 30,000 comments. The belt buckles she claims to handcraft are listed on Shein for $9; her TikTok storefront prices them at $40.
Jeremy Carrasco, director of AI-video detection firm Riddance.ai, told The Verge his team is identifying up to 100 new accounts per day attempting to sell dropshipped products through AI-generated personas. Most of the accounts surveyed were created within the last two months from May 30, 2026. The scripts repeat scene-for-scene across dozens of avatars, swapping out the character's race, the product, and minor staging details.
The pattern is consistent: a synthetic seller films a tearful plea, claims marginalized identity, and links to a Shopify storefront fulfilling orders from Shein or similar fast-fashion catalogs. Carrasco calls it 'empathy bait.' Sister accounts pump out near-identical videos under names like Aliyahsbuckles and Amaya's buckles, sharing backgrounds, tabletops, and props.
Key facts
- 01Riddance.ai estimates up to 100 new accounts per day are launching AI-generated avatars to sell dropshipped products on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
- 02An AI avatar named Aliyah selling 'handmade' belt buckles has 40,000 followers; her top video drew 6.5 million views, 814,000 likes, and nearly 30,000 comments.
- 03The same belt buckles being marketed for $40 on TikTok are listed on Shein for $9, a 4x markup.
- 04Most of the avatar accounts identified were created in the last two months, with Black women characters drawing the highest engagement.
- 05Gizelle Bryant of The Real Housewives of Potomac said she bought two crocheted bags from an AI-generated avatar two weeks before May 30, 2026.
Carrasco said the operators are mostly opportunistic rather than coordinated, though some networks run multiple shops behind a single avatar. The tells are visible but easy to miss at scroll speed: robotic voice tracks misaligned with crying faces, sewing motions on leather that doesn't require stitching, tear streams that vanish mid-wipe.
“Most of them aren't coordinated. Some of them are coordinated. A lot of the time they'll run a single [AI-generated] actor, or a couple actors will run all sorts of shops”— Jeremy Carrasco, Director of Riddance.ai
Engagement data suggests the format works. Aliyah's most-viewed video collected 6.5 million views on a platform where comment sections fill with viewers urging others to boost the seller's reach. India Cater-Campbell, a Seattle entrepreneur opening a café, told The Verge she commented to support what she believed was 'an independent Black businesswoman.' She only avoided a purchase because she could not immediately find a store link.
Carrasco's read on the economics is blunt: the platforms tolerate the content because detection is patchy and the upside is clear for whoever runs the shop.
“It's just an arbitrary opportunity, which is what a lot of AI content out there is — the platforms don't really care and people don't notice.”— Jeremy Carrasco, Director of Riddance.ai
Celebrities are converting too. Gizelle Bryant of The Real Housewives of Potomac said on her podcast Reasonably Shady that she bought two crocheted bags after watching an AI-generated video of a Black boy claiming he was being bullied for crocheting. Bryant said actress Viola Davis appeared in the comments of the same video. The accounts contacted by The Verge, including Aliyahsbuckles, did not respond.
The Verge identified Native American, Hispanic, and white avatars running the same playbook, but Black women characters drew the highest engagement. Cienna Davis, a communications researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, described the trend as digital blackface — the use of digital tools to mimic Black cultural expression for economic gain. Tempest M. Henning, a philosophy professor at Fisk University, agreed, noting the avatars carry Black-coded names like Aliyah and Amaya but no other markers of authentic identity beyond their generated appearance.
Henning pointed to the virtue-signaling mechanics that make the videos convert: a white woman antagonist throws coffee on the seller's products, prompting viewers to distance themselves and buy. The same scene repeats across an account called ChubbyKnots selling a crocheted butterfly cardigan, with the avatar swapped for a Black girl.
Detection is the unresolved variable. Carrasco said current-generation video models are 'realistic enough to trick' most viewers in a feed, and platforms have no consistent labeling enforcement — some videos carry AI-generated tags, most do not. TikTok, Meta, and Shopify each have policies against impersonation and undisclosed synthetic media, but the volume Carrasco describes — up to 100 fresh accounts per day from one research team's view — outpaces moderation throughput.
The dropshipping scam is a useful preview of where low-cost generative video lands when it meets a high-margin commerce funnel. The marginal cost of producing a convincing avatar has dropped to near zero, the markup on a $9 Shein item resold at $40 covers ad spend many times over, and the platforms hosting the videos earn revenue regardless of whether the seller is human. Until detection and disclosure become enforceable at scale, every viral commerce niche on TikTok is a target, and the avatar economy will keep finding the communities most willing to click buy.
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