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TikTok’s Ugly ‘NPC in Real Life’ Trend
- smoldesu 4y agoFWIW, the "NPC" trend is another example of 4chan memes cropping up in popular culture, somehow. Perhaps even more perplexing is that Wojak ('the' NPC) was originally used to demean users of social media like TikTok and Twitter. I'd be really interested to see how the etymology of the phrase evolved online! Supposedly ground-zero: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1411339-npc-wojak https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1411339-npc-wojak
- bakugo 4y ago4chan memes being bastardized by mainstream social media happens so often now, I barely even notice it anymore. The most egregious recent example is probably the "virgin vs chad" meme. Within mere days of it being created, I was already seeing edits of it on various websites (mostly reddit) that completely missed the point of the joke and treated it as yet another "thing I do good, thing you do bad" image macro.
- smoldesu 4y agoDefinitely nothing new, but still really interesting to watch. I really don't understand how people could appropriate an image like Wojak unless they didn't know what it was.
- drekipus 4y agoI think there's a bit of a timeless, easy-to-convey meaning behind the image, which is what makes them memes. People like to treat 4chan like it's this obscure, underground, edgy hacker place. but it's really just a website like any other filled with people who have too much time on their hands. It has the same amount of gore, porn, and bullshit that goes on in Reddit, (less, if you account for the fact that posts get deleted eventually and there's a limitation on how many threads are open, unlike reddit). Your neighbours kids probably goes on 4chan, I know neighbour's does. And I'm a lot less worried about "avid 4chan users" than "avid reddit users"
- Jaygles 4y ago>missed the point of the joke Adapting and evolving formats isn't "missing the point". They are two distinct audiences with two distinct cultures. Of course they aren't going to make the same memes.
- jterrys 4y agoThe best part about the virgin vs chad meme is the evolution of the Nordic Aryan chad side profile image of it. A literal racist shitpost (against Mediterraneans) just casually makes its way into the mainstream without the vast majority of its users not realizing what it originated from.
- kirbys-memeteam 4y ago
- kmeisthax 4y agoI think this is a different meme. The TikTok trend is "people acting like badly programmed game characters", the wojak comic is "people who disagree with me aren't people".
- soulofmischief 4y agoNo, the TikTok trend, if you read the article, is about treating strangers as if they are NPCs, not being one yourself. It's still only tangentially inspired by the 4chan meme and not directly appropriated.
- jakear 4y agoFor the specific term “NPC” maybe, but the idea of “There is a main character and every one else is a machine” goes back much further - Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions (1973) tackles the idea in a particularly humorous way. (Not too much of a spoiler I hope, in classic Vonnegut fashion the bottom line is delivered up front and the rest book is about getting there) Note: don’t be tempted by the audiobook! The real deal features illustrations by the author
- CharlesW 4y agoFor that matter, although 4chan co-opted "NPC" for the NPC meme/NPC Womack, the joke of calling actual people "NPCs" goes back way before that in nerd/geek circles.
- scifibestfi 4y agoThe NPC meme resonates because it's true that a lot of people respond to keywords with the same phrases. And they update The Current Thing in unison. Once you see that, you can't unsee it.
- seattle_spring 4y agoCan you provide some examples?
- woopwoop 4y agoOne example I can think of is the use of the phrase "current thing" to pejoratively describe when a certain political issue that no two reasonable people could disagree about, such as a dictatorship waging a brutal war of imperial conquest on a burgeoning democracy, develops high salience.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- scifibestfi 4y agoThose are mirror image NPCs.
- vba616 4y agoThe intellectual geopolitical reasons for supporting Ukraine are one thing and the apparent emotional reactions are another. Questioning the latter doesn't necessarily mean attacking the former. When people say "current thing", I doubt that they are scoffing at the realpolitik calculations of the US and NATO that now is the time to make a stand or criticizing the arms shipments. Maybe they are, but there is definitely something about the situation that has nothing to do with public policy. I thought about how to quantify the peculiarity without making vague statements about what I feel. 1. "Everybody is a Ukrainian" but not a Syrian, Chechen, Armenian, as evidenced by flags in real life in my area and on social media. Also comments by acquaintances that they know someone from Ukraine, as if it's supposed to be shocking, you know, this is real, this is serious. There are Armenians in this town! I have a cousin who lives in Boston, and most likely he knows some Chechens... 2. Some people spoke out and said "what about the Palestinians and the Israelis?" Including people I'm acquainted with offline/real life. I don't think you have to be particularly pro-Palestinian or agree that the Israeli actions are the moral equivalent of Russia's to observe an unexplained lack of public emotion in favor of Palestinians compared to Ukrainians. Empathy isn't something that hinges on complicated technical considerations. This is only one possible example of its absence, but more than one person called it out, and it's hard to call them apologists for Russia. 3. Online comments that presume that this conflict is/has been the only, or the only significant, brutal conflict involving the Russian Federation. That seems like weak evidence that the general atmosphere and media coverage is extracting Ukraine from all context. Grozny! Of course, you can find coverage of anything, so what I'm saying is not that the media "ignores" anything, which is often accused but never true, but that if enough people are misinformed in a particular way then it suggests some sort of pattern in the media (or social media) climate.
- rightbyte 4y agoIsn't NPC (non-player character) a roleplaying term? I.e. a character controlled by the game master.
- blooalien 4y agoYes, or in a computer RPG controlled by a pre-programmed "AI" (pre-determined scripted actions / dialogue). This is the one I suspect the meme is more likely built upon.
- chimineycricket 4y agoYes and this started because there was a study that said some people can't hear themselves think (the internal voice when you think or read text). 4chan thought this meant that they literally just _act_, without thoughts. NPCs
- vba616 4y ago>the internal voice when you think or read text A normal conversational speaking rate for English speakers in the US is said to be about 150 wpm. A typical novel is said to be about 95,000 words. Therefore anyone who can read a novel in less than 10-11 hours must not have this "internal voice". A witch! Burn them!
- oifjsidjf 4y agoCan NPCs get triggered by NPCs memes if NPCs aren't aware? Or are NPCs aware just enough to know they are the punchline of the NPC joke?
- ccvannorman 4y agoTo extend your fourth wall proposition further, how do you (or anyone) know you're not an NPC? Are there hierarchies of NPCs, where you think you're the player character, but in fact there are always "Real" players above you and "NPC"s below?
- rdtwo 4y agoEverything on that site is just trigger bait.
- c7DJTLrn 4y agoSo glad I grew up before TikTok was a thing.
- Sin2x 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie
- rosmax_1337 4y agoThe NPC-meme is fun and more accurate than you might think it is. I've always found a correlation between being mean to NPCs and being mean to other people. (irregardless of their real-life NPC status) Being mean is a bit cringe if you ask me.
- azemetre 4y agoAfter seeing examples in the article I think you (or likely the author) are confused. The examples they showed are people acting like jackasses in public trying to elicit and reaction (one example was someone screaming at an art museum then reciting some weird monologue in a posh accent). I don’t know what npc has to do with this. I guess I’m getting old.
- eloisius 4y agoWhat is with the TikTok panic posts? I don’t like that a Chinese social media app has so much influence in the West either, but articles like this are getting downright silly. The NPC in real life videos are mostly play acted people doing NPC stuff like awkwardly running in place while colliding with an obstacle, or repeating gestures stiffly. Some of them are actually really well acted and look like Skyrim or something. The closest thing to what this article describes that I’ve seen usually appear to be a chance encounter with an irate “Karen” who is making incoherent arguments and threats that are reminiscent of the threats Grand Theft Auto NPCs make if you walk into them. It’s usually over something stupid like skateboarding in their neighborhood. Never seen one where they go out and do something mean to an old person and film it.
- ccvannorman 4y agoThe best Irate Karen videos are the ones with the correct game music theme added https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXqWdtsFqsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXqWdtsFqsc
- NickRRau 4y agoNot to immediately downgrade this into conspiracies, but these types of articles do give off the impression of invested interests trying to fear monger. If we wanted to inform people of the "danger" tiktok poses to our country it would involve giving power to the public to see that we have domestic actors that are _nearly_ as bad... Maybe I'm just biased because I love the NPC in real life trend as well.
- vineyardmike 4y agoEh I don’t buy it. We always had scare articles. Not to defend the deplorable behavior, but it’s just another complaint about the newest young people. Remember YouTube? Kids did stupid shit and harassed people for views. They still do. New medium, new names, same kids doing anything for a few internet points.
- hairofadog 4y agoThe trend she's complaining about (rightly, in my opinion) is people filming themselves trying to make other people uncomfortable, with the justification that other members of the public are only NPCs, not real people, and so there's no moral problem. She gives several examples (although she does also give one example of what you're talking about, which is someone acting like an NPC, which is fine, if unoriginal). I've accidentally come across many examples of people harassing other people as a "prank", and my impression is that the harassers have been late or deficient in developing empathy.
- aeternum 4y agoWe just need another app that lets us decrement the social credit score of these tiktok 'content-creators'.
- mjfl 4y agoexactly. This will allow us to properly guard the current thing.
- seydor 4y ago
- Animats 4y ago
- MisterTea 4y agoDid you read the article? "I’ve been seeing these videos for at least a year, what I’d call the “NPC in real life” trend on TikTok, videos which involve harassing, embarrassing, or frightening people in public." The author is explaining how some tiktok users are harassing people IRL either acting as an NPC or treating the mark as an NPC. Both are annoying and degrading experiences for the mark but justified by the tiktok user and their followers because lulz. It used to be if you harassed a random person you risked being assaulted by them in self defense. #punchrudeticktockers
- collegeburner 4y ago
- emptyparadise 4y agoI was hoping this would be about people acting out janky NPC animations in real life.
- xnx 4y agoThis is what you're looking for: https://www.tiktok.com/@loczniki/video/7117299874034453766 https://www.tiktok.com/@loczniki/video/7117299874034453766
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago"What if only I am truly conscious" is not a new concept. And as usual there is an xkcd for it: https://xkcd.com/610 https://xkcd.com/610
- kypro 4y agoIs this a new trend or just a new way of describing something that has always existed? I remember when I was a teen we used to do stuff like this. When with friends we'd often do weird things in public just to see how people would react. Also when I was in school there was a TV show here in the UK called Balls of Steel which did the similar things to "NPCs" that these kids are doing today on TikTok, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A_X1gwnR7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A_X1gwnR7k
- eloisius 4y agoIt’s definitely not new. When I was a kid it was Trigger Happy TV, Jackass or CKY. How you could write a panicky article like this with a straight face I don’t know.
- masklinn 4y agoThink a big difference with those is you had a handful across the country. The odds of being caught up in it were basically nil. Tiktok douchebaggery trends significantly increase the odds of random innocents being caught in this garbage, see the top comment who apparently got hit twice. And then there’s the shit that’s actively dangerous to third parties. Like pretty much any involving cars.
- hairofadog 4y agoI agree, and I'd add that there's also a big difference in the level of talent on display. Trigger Happy TV didn't often go out of their way to make people feel uncomfortable as much as to make them genuinely confused about what they were seeing (though there were some unfunny counterexamples, like their "yelling on a giant cellphone" bit). In the examples here, the victims know exactly what they're seeing, which is yet another imitator who thinks being exceptionally rude is the same thing as being funny.
- bitshiftfaced 4y agoAnother difference is that those shows would get the participants' consent after the prank or blur their faces.
- theknocker 4y agoPSA it's not actually cool to seek out safety in numbers. If all of your opinions heavily factor in "what is it safe to think in public," then you are an NPC. You are less cool than people who aren't born to follow.
- firefoxd 4y agoMaybe this is a bit different, but there is a trend of being a douchebag to others only to record reaction, because "hey I'm just making a tiktok video man". It caught me by surprise when a 20 year old struck a conversation with me at a self check out at a store. "Would you buy this for my girlfriend" and he showed me some flowers he had picked up. "Sure, they're nice flowers". Then he started scanning them into my cart. Then scanning all the other stuff he had in his basket. I tried to be nice and told him to go to the next checkout stand with his stuff. "But you said you would buy it" He kept making noise and being extra dramatic. I got really pissed and pushed him away. He came back telling the clerks that I was to pay for it. I was boiling red until i saw another kid capturing the whole thing and laughing... Something similar happened a month ago. This time I was taking the elevator with my son and we saw tree kids in torn clothes. The elevator was packed. They kept pressing the top floor, forcing everyone to go back up before they get a chance to exit. one was begging for money, while the other was yelling and making it very uncomfortable. My 3 year old son, a big fan of paw patrol, decided to join in the fun. He pressed the alarm, press the emergency button and started yelling "help! Rescue team, fire fighter, help!" The operator answered immediately, that he is sending help. The kids freaked out. One of them climbed the elevator to remove a hidden GoPro that was recording the whole thing. They apologized and said it was just for tiktok, before they ran out. The rest of the riders cheered for my son.
- yumraj 4y ago> One of them climbed the elevator to remove a hidden GoPro that was recording the whole thing. Someone should have stopped the kid from taking the GoPro - it's like stealing since no one knows whose GoPro is it. That may have taught them a little lesson..
- otikik 4y agoYouTube automatically demonetizes videos with certain phrases, TikTok probably does something similar. So continuously shouting “COVID vaccines don’t work” to the camera until they stop recording could be an option. If they get pissed, tell them that you are just doing a TikTok.
- 4y ago
- layer8 4y agoThis reminds me of https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/your-own-private-universe/ https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/your-own-private-unive....
- Ancalagon 4y agoNot saying the behavior is right, but a lot of the anecdotal stories in this thread just sound like teenage behavior, albeit recorded on ubiquitous cameras or by the teenagers themselves. Again, I don't condone this type of behavior, just saying it seems normal for each generation relative to how my friends and I acted as pre-teens/teens and we are all just growing older/more aware of it.
- bostonvaulter2 4y agoAm I the only one who thinks that calling other people NPCs is basically the same thing as saying that they are not human? That they aren't really alive/conscious. I find that concept utterly offensive. Although maybe I'm being a bit too literal about it.
- CharlesW 4y ago> "Am I the only one who thinks that calling other people NPCs is basically the same thing as saying that they are not human?" Yes, it's often used to dehumanize people. Sometimes it's just meant as a joke, but sometimes it's not.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tangjurine 4y agoI think calling people NPCs started because there are a lot of people working in dead end jobs that gave up their dreams a long time ago and aren't really thinking about how to really live they're just trying to get by day to day. I think it's better to raise awareness of people who are NPCs than to try to ignore it and pretend everyone in America's living the great life.
- yung_steezy 4y agoIronically these kids are behaving like videogame NPCs themselves in the videos by interacting with others in an incoherent, stilted manner.
- jacooper 4y agoWhy does tiktok seem to attract these dumb trends? It really seems to be special to tiktok, were there any crazy trends/challenges from other social media recently?
- tonfreed 4y agoIt's the current thing. The tide pod challenge and the light yourself on fire challenge spread via YouTube and Facebook iirc. In 5 or 10 years we'll probably be complaining about a new social media service
- jacooper 4y agoBut the rate of these dumb things is simply unmatched, is it simply because TikTok is way more fast-pace than other social media?
- fxtentacle 4y agoI'm so glad that this shit is illegal where I live :) Here, one can sue the TikTok douchebag for infringing on personality rights if he records others without their permission.