What is a whale on TikTok LIVE?

A whale is slang for a viewer who gives far more than a typical supporter. There is no official threshold: people use the word for the biggest gifters in a room, on a leaderboard or for a creator. Whales are the reason a small number of viewers can account for a large share of one creator's gift income.

Toktik's gifter boards rank the viewers who sent the most diamonds in the rooms we watch, over a recent window, by region. Every figure there is observed, which means it is a lower bound of what someone gave. We only see gifts in the rooms we watch, so the number is never a person's total spend.

Some top gifters appear with a hidden handle because they use Enigma mode. Their gifts still count towards the board's totals, but the name is withheld on purpose. Where a name is shown it is the public name the viewer uses, and rows below the visible part of the board are masked for non-members.

For creators, the whale concentration is worth knowing. A creator who depends on one or two big supporters has a less stable income than one with a broad base of small gifts, because those supporters may stop or move to another creator. For agencies, a gifter board shows which regions have the most generous audiences.

Calling someone a whale says nothing about their circumstances, and Toktik does not rate people. The boards describe gift activity that was public in a LIVE room, nothing more.