Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty
A paypig smiles at his phone as a Telegram chatbot demands he send it all of his money. He types “/topup” in the chat, selects $100, and submits his payment to his goddess. Meanwhile, the findom is in a hoodie and sweatpants with her feet up watching Netflix—all while the cash rolls in.
To most, this scenario—along with its terms like “paypig” or “findom”—may seem strange or even just plain bizarre. However, it’s all a part of the growing community of financial domination (also known as findom), a fetish lifestyle in which a submissive (also called paypigs or finsubs) sends money or gifts to a financial dominatrix who will tease the paypig into sending them as much money as possible. The kink is about the power imbalance and degradation, with the paypig being the submissive using their money as the transfer of power.
However, findoms are taking this to the next level by using artificial intelligence to create chatbots that drain the wallets of their paypigs. While much has been made about the risk surrounding the technology—especially when it comes to replacing large swaths of the labor market including developers, writers, actors, and more—some findoms have begun to leverage it to great effect to automate their own work, and even their own personalities.