Rise of the NPCs!!!
Within the last few months, I’ve noticed a new insult popping up in my social media feeds: “NPC,” as in “Why am I talking to you, anyway? You’re an NPC.” I had no idea what the hell they meant. Because I prefer to know the exact manner in which I am being insulted, I cranked up the old research machine and discovered that NPC is a video game term for “non-playing character.” NPCs are the background artists of the video game world, minor characters programmed to do little more than populate the game’s simulated world. Shopkeepers, wizards who read the scroll, maybe the girl who rents you a horse.
NPCs have now matriculated over to the rightwing weird-o-sphere, where some of the world’s incelliest (not a word) conspiracists have adopted its usage to refer to those normies who haven’t been red-pilled or black-pilled or whatever the color of the pill is they pretend to have taken to be shown “the truth.” They’re Neo - you’re still hooked up to the Machine.
As a NPC, you’re merely an obstacle they need to overcome on the way to completing their “game.” You’re nothing. Brain-dead. You have no agency nor intellectual capacity. But here’s the thing: some of them really believe this.
And it’s terrifying.
To my continual surprise, this week has all been about Dilbert creator Scott Adams for me. Many of you probably already know I appeared on his show this week to discuss his claim that “It’s impossible to have a political conversation with somebody who believes the news is real.” I wrote about that conversation here; you can watch the unedited video there as well, but I guarantee you won’t make it past more than ten minutes because both of us will drive you crazy. In his case, because he’s nuts. In my case, because I’m a hopeless pedant.
Anyway, towards the end of that conversation, Scott mentioned that he subscribes to “Simulation Theory,” which states that our reality is, in fact, a computer simulation. There’s a lot of cool writing on this topic, and I won’t offer an opinion about its plausibility because, as I have often said, I am an idiot. As such, I have no idea if such a thing could be true, but I will agree that the logic holds up to the extent that I’m able to understand it.
If we’re living in a simulation like a video game, it may logically follow that the simulation in which we all “live” requires - because of the enormous amounts of processing power needed to power an entire simulated universe – an abundance of NPCs to make the simulation appear as lifelike as possible for the actual characters like Scott. It’s unclear why somebody would believe themselves to be a PC (playing character) versus a NPC. How would you even know? You wouldn’t. But, of course, if you subscribe to this theory, you’re probably going to cast yourself as one of the beings with agency and free will because Descartes said some shit and it sounds good enough to you.
But what about the rest of us NPCs? If we are not “real,” in the same way that they’re real, then it must follow that we’re not human.
Of course, many people just use the term as a dig at people they think lack independent thought or are incapable of generating original ideas. But I do believe (based on nothing other than anecdotal experience) that there is a minority of people who hold this solipsistic view; that they are somehow more human than others because they believe themselves to be active players and the people with whom they disagree are not.
Does this ring any bells with people who study fascist movements? The first thing the fascist has to do is identify an enemy and then dehumanize that person. We’ve seen it time and time again. Enemies are labeled as vermin, cockroaches, sub-humans. What follows is as horrifying as it is predictable.
It's easy to see how the rise of NPCs could happen in an increasingly virtual world. We already treat each other as if there are not real people on the other end of the hateful words we send out into the ether. Further, there really are bots responding to tweets and memes and messages of all kinds, so maybe that extends to IRL as well? The theory also allows those accusing others of being NPCs to feel as though they are privy to secret, esoteric knowledge, again a hallmark of fascistic movements.
Look, I’m making no claims that we’re going to see a large-scale political movement based on NPC existentialism, but I suspect we’re going to see this idea get more and more mainstreamed, at least among those living on the edges of the rightwing, because it gives them cover for their hatred. How can they be racist towards an NPC, for example? Is it really bullying if the transperson is an NPC? Consider how easy rape would be to justify. It’s the worst kind of moral licensing because the belief excuses all manner of bad behavior, just like the tourists in the first season of Westworld (I didn’t watch past that) had no qualms about abusing the robots they’ve paid to interact with. No harm, no foul.
Until the harm is real.
This use of NPC is, as you are saying, a kind of cheat code for non-psychopaths to depersonalize others, making it that much easier to disregard their humanity. That said, when I see it in use I always imagine someone repeatedly walking into a wall like a badly coded character in a game.
Petition to establish the slang definition of NPC in the vernacular to only refer to those who are eligible to vote but choose not to.