People are seriously disturbed by the new NPC character trend on TikTok
Topics: News, Gaming, TikTok, Social Media
Charisa Bossinakis
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/Trisha Paytas. TikTok/pinkydollreal
Topics: News, Gaming, TikTok, Social Media
The internet is losing its goddamn mind over the NPC TikTok trend.
For those of you playing at home, NPC refers to a ‘non-playable character’, and they seem to be all the rage right now on the social media platform.
Many users are sharing clips of them using TikTok’s Live features to mimic NPCs, mainly consisting of repetitive hand gestures and phrases - and the more bizarre, the better.
The trend took off after PinkyDoll began posting videos of her acting as an NPC using catchphrases including ‘Ice cream so good’ and ‘Yes, yes, yes!’, offering up a few movements and glitches.
And, thanks to PinkyDoll, TikTok has a Live feature that allows users to pass on ‘gifts’ that turn into monetary rewards.
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Users can send these little virtual coins, which come in various forms like dinosaurs, ice cream cones, and roses.
She told The New York Times: “I was just being cute.
"I remember someone saying, ‘Oh my God, you look like an NPC. And then they start sending me, like, crazy money.”
She makes up to $3,000 per stream thanks to all these online gifts, which is absolutely incredible.
Now, loads of users have started sharing their incarnation of their own NPC, handing out and accepting their very own ‘gifts’.
One TikToker recorded herself jumping up and down, continuously saying, ‘Thank you for the dinosaur’ while another user shared a video stating, ‘Feed me, I’m hungry. Roses Yum,’ as he waves chopsticks.
Now, I get the ‘POV’ videos, the astrological ones and even the ‘A Day in the Life' TikToks, but this new trend is utterly strange.
The New York Times notes that some would consider this content as a fetish because 'there’s something sexual about being able to control her every word and gesture by sending her this or that gift'.
Even Trisha Paytas jumped on the NPC bandwagon, sharing a video of herself sporting a hot pink number while bobbing up and down, stating: “Hi Joselynn! Hi Joselynn! Hi Joselynn.”
This is more dystopian than any episode of Black Mirror.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 18, 2023
pic.twitter.com/yWqWRW47A6
Wtf even is TikTok….everyone wanna be an NPC now pic.twitter.com/B0XKRXjjdK
— OG ERT (@og_ert) July 16, 2023
Trisha Paytas is the latest content creator to join the current trend of “NPC” live-streaming on TikTok. pic.twitter.com/WWaroBGnrY
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 18, 2023
Many users were left unimpressed, as one person wrote: “I can’t stand this unoriginal bandwagon society.”
Another said: “Yo this is hell lmao. TikTok is literally flooded with people doing this on live rn [right now]… from regular ppl to big artists… IDIOCRACY WAS A DOCUMENTARY.”
While a third shared: “This is the worst generation of people ever to exist on the planet.”
A fourth quipped: "This is more dystopian than any episode of Black Mirror."
Rolling Stone even described the latest movement as ‘thoughtless’; but noted that some find solace in it, as it’s all about letting go of consciousness.
“In the midst of the endlessly mounting stressors of daily life, from increasing student debt to the overhauling of reproductive rights to the fact that nearly half the country has developed a severe case of brainworms, watching someone turn off any semblance of a thought and embody a perfectly smooth-brained, blinking specter is almost relaxing,” wrote Rolling Stone’s EJ Dickinson.
Look, I'm all for that.
'Yes yum yum ice cream good gooood'.