AI grifters are creating fake Black people to sell Shein junk
Can race, guilt, and empathy get you to pay $40 for this $9 belt buckle on TikTok?
by
Nicole Froio
May 30, 2026, 8:00 AM CDT


Aliyah, a light-skinned Black woman dressed in country-western gear, is struggling to sell metal buckles she handmade on TikTok. In a video for the social media platform from March, she cries to the camera and pleads for views: “Even as a black woman, I have more faith that white women will stay 13 seconds [on this video] to save my belt buckle business,” the onscreen text reads. She wipes a tear off her cheek.

But Aliyah isn’t real, and neither are her supposedly handmade products — she’s one of many AI-generated influencers created to sell mass-produced products via dropshipping on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. Identical belt buckles — sunflower design, detachable knife inlay, and all — are sold on the fast-fashion site Shein, and for a quarter of the price.

There are some clues to spot to determine that this video is AI-generated. Aliyah’s voice is robotic and emotionless, which doesn’t match the crying face on the screen. In one clip, she is sewing a leather belt where there wouldn’t usually be sewing at all. When she wipes a tear off her face, the stream of liquid below where she wipes also disappears. And lastly, there are dozens of uncannily comparable videos, but with different AI-generated characters, circulating on TikTok. One, a profile for an account called “Aliyahsbuckles,” features an identical background, tabletop, and spool of twine.

The Verge found dozens of accounts on TikTok with similar narratives and a variety of dropshipping products, including belt buckles, mugs shaped like cowboy boots, crochet bags, and cardigans. Some of these videos are labelled as AI-generated. Similar accounts are also active on Instagram and Facebook. Nearly all aspects of the accounts appear to be AI-generated — from the “person” in the video to automated responses to comments, which in some cases attempt to mimic African American vernacular — and experts warn scams like this are growing every day.

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