Surprise! Those Weird Pink Dragon TikToks Are Ads For a Mobile Game
Published Jan. 27 2023, 5:36 p.m. ET
TikTok is home to some of the most captivating content on the web. From questionable dance moves and hilarious memes to hot new songs and more, TikTok seemingly has it all. The latest bit of content making the rounds on the platform is a bizarre pink dragon TikTok.
A few different variants of the video are floating around, but they’re all equally awkward and have been leaving viewers incredibly confused as to their purpose.
Curious to learn more about the strange pink dragon TikTok trend? Here’s what we know so far.
What’s up with the pink dragon TikToks?
While there’s a lot of ambiguity surrounding the pink dragon TikToks, the original clips used in the footage are actually from ads for a mobile game. Dragon Farm Adventure, a farming and adventure game on iOS and Android, features the same pink dragon as the TikTok posts.
It’s a rather typical mobile game (featuring base building, light exploration, and time-gated events), although the viral TikToks seem to have given it a fair bit of clout – at the time of writing, the app has over one million downloads on Google Play alone.
Beyond the mobile game, many of the pink dragon TikToks also seem to pull from The Lion King. In fact, one of the clips features Pride Rock, while the other is nearly a shot-for-shot remake of the wildebeest scene involving Scar and Mufasa. Wherever the shot is taking place, every clip seems to end with the pink dragon’s mother meeting an untimely end.
Are the pink dragon TikToks just an ad?
While it’s difficult to say for certain, most of the pink dragon TikToks floating around the web are likely some sort of viral advertisement. Mobile games are notorious for questionable ads (Raid: Shadow Legends, anyone?), and it seems like Dragon Farm Adventure might be jumping on the bandwagon. Its parent company, Betta Games, has launched close to 20 mobile games over the years, some of which have been met with little commercial success.
Dragon Farm Adventure, meanwhile, has been on the market for several years and has pulled in more than a million installs. It’s hard to say which TikToks are ads and which are spinoffs, but it’s clear that Dragon Farm Adventure is seeing a popularity boost from the hilarious series of videos.
