As I sat in my hotel room outlining this piece, I couldn’t help but catch myself and think about how odd this topic is. I would never have thought that one day I would be writing about whether or not certain people that you see on the street are actually real (obviously, they are). It is truly bizarre. But then again, these are truly bizarre times, and with an open mind, I simply cannot help myself from experimenting with ideas in the abstract. So, here we are.
So what is an NPC? If you play video games, especially open-world games like Grand Theft Auto, you will be all too familiar with the term. NPC stands for Non-Playable Character. In essence, they are brainless characters that just roam around the environment of the game. You cannot play with them, and whenever you interact with these characters, you usually get the same cookie cutter responses that they have been programmed to reply with. I have played video games for almost my entire life, however I have essentially given them up at the ripe old age of 23. I became aware of the term “NPC” a little over a year ago as I saw jokes and memes about “real life” encounters with them circulating across Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok. I honestly think the jokes are funny, however, what does that say about us as a society and the mentality of today’s internet culture?
It is my belief, and the belief of many others much funnier than I, that the reason why jokes are so funny and bring us so much joy, is that rooted in every joke lies the existence of at least a sliver of truth. So when I see funny jokes about NPC’s, I think to myself, what in this has an element of truth? What makes this so funny? I have been asking myself these questions for some time now. Does the sliver of truth lie in people actually believing that NPC’s exist? I tend to think it does. Not that people believe it fully, but that somewhere in the subconscious of many people lies this very minute belief, or this fractured view of reality and humanity, that the strangers they observe on the street, in the grocery store, or anywhere really, might not actually be real. Well, supposing this is true, how did this very faint sliver become imbedded in the minds of so many? I feel like, the existence of jokes about real life NPC’s wouldn’t be possible without the jokes that began to circulate before them. Those being jokes about us living in the “Matrix” or “Simulation”.
When it comes to human beings, our beliefs and our minds are very malleable. In the sense that whatever we hear, read, see, or watch can override our conscious ability to come to our own conclusions. This only happens with repetition. The phrase “you are what you eat” is applicable not only to food, but also to the information that you take in. If all you do is go down a rabbit hole of celebrity gossip, reality television, and liking photos of giant mansions on Instagram, you are going to be a braindead moron. I know that is a silly example, but it is applicable across the entire spectrum. The simulation, in my mind is real. Not in a way where we are all in pods of gel hooked up to machines. Rather, that the “simulation” or “matrix” is the very intricate dance between parts of our consciousness. The balance between finite reality and the abstract.
I find myself doing the tango quite often. When I think of the matrix, I think of the influence that social media and the news has on us. We are more addicted to our phones than ever, even the boomers spend their days on Facebook. So what does that do to us? Is that throwing us off balance? Of course it is, the influence of mass media as a whole has an incredibly tight grip over us all, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. By simply taking in your daily does of “news”, gaslighting from political elites, images of death and trauma, people screaming into the void in an attempt to make an actual point on Twitter, or the countless thirst traps, you will have a hellish cocktail injected straight into your subconscious. Thus creating a very distorted, disconnected perception of reality. As every day goes by, as we take our daily dose, our perceptions can become so distorted that there is almost no way for us to come to an agreement on what reality is. We can no longer make the distinction between the finite and the abstract.
Don’t get me wrong, I love video games, but not for the gameplay or the storylines or anything like that. I have always enjoyed video games, because it allowed me to spend time having fun with my friends, albeit “virtually”. We talked trash, made fun of each other, competed against one another. Sometimes, we would bring our monitors and consoles to someones house and all play in the same room. It was a great time, and is a testament to why so many of us fall in love with gaming. I think that video games have been a benefit to society in that way, as they allow for people to connect with others in a very unique manner, regardless of location.
When I think of my relationship with the internet in general, I feel as though it truly splits my life in half. Sort of a B.C. to A.D. scenario, or B.I. to P.I. rather. Most of my childhood, was spend without the internet and computers, and when I did use the internet, it was for one hour a week in “computer lab”. Basically all I did was play Cool-math games. I am truly thankful that I spent my childhood outside, in nature, playing with my twin sister, and exploring my imagination to its fullest extent. That is why, for me, as much as I truly understand computers and the internet, they have never felt native to my being. They have always felt like these foreign entities that are tools and a resources at my disposal. They are certainly not places where I would want to spend my entire life. That goes for most people my age and older, I think. However, we have a new generation that will soon come into adulthood, one that may not feel the same way.
The “iPad kids” will be an interesting generation. This is a truly experimental generation of kids. There has never been a generation of kids so integrated with and connected through technology, while simultaneously being the most disconnected generation in terms of real world human interaction. I don’t mean to demonize them, I am not doing that at all, what I am saying is that things will be interesting. Now, I don’t mean to get all preachy about how people should raise their kids, as I do not have any of my own, but it doesn’t seem great that people use phones, tablets, and television as pacifiers for their kids. Kids are supposed to explore their imaginations, not have one put into them. Like I said earlier, the term “you are what you eat” doesn’t just apply to food. So what will be the outcomes if their entire conscious lives are influenced by technology, the internet, and entertainment? What effects will this have on human psychology?
I don’t know where this will lead, but as I look out into the internet, all I see are kids and young adults that are evermore engulfed in the virtual world. There are massive communities in internet chat rooms, a la Discord, streams on Twitch with tens of thousands of viewers in the middle of the day, and in some specific examples, young people that exclusively have friends online. This is the great disconnect, the substitution of substantive, meaningful human interaction, for a quicker, more readily available form of interaction that is just close enough to the real thing that we almost don't realize it.
Humans are social creatures, we must interact with one another. The less we do, the less value we will place on the lives of one another, and the further we will drift away from reality. That is the trend of the human race in the west. A transition out of society, and into the “Meta-verse”, the true “matrix” or “simulation”. This trend, was undeniably sped up by the Covid-19 pandemic, as people were forced inside, stripped of their ability to socialize en mass, taken out of their classrooms, their offices, the restaurants, bars, you name it. So when we could not get human interaction in reality, it was only natural that we turned to the internet, our virtual reality, the only place we could speak with one another.
So, let us return to the topic of NPCs and this seemingly odd cultural phenomenon. I know that I have extrapolated quite a lot on the simple topic of a genre of jokes, but the premiss is so odd, I couldn’t help myself. Is it just a joke? A symptom of western society’s foray into the virtual world? Is it a symptom of internet psychosis? I think all three are correct, in a sense. However, there is a missing element. No only is this a symptom of disconnection, the effects of mass media (in all forms), or the influence of video games and the internet, but there is also influence from “real life” culture as well. The phrase “you are the star of your own movie” has become embedded in our culture, and it has been a detriment to society. It is just this light sprinkling of narcissism that makes us all forget our place in the world, or rather, how small a part we actually play. This, combined with the almost complete corporatization of our job market, and the backstabbing, cutthroat, selfish behavior that gets rewarded within it, has inflated the egos of far too many people. Thus contributing to that tiny bit of subconscious belief that maybe the strangers around me are indeed NPCs. I am the star of my own movie, and everyone else is just an extra.
So what do we have here? Obviously, people are real, and NPCs do not exist in “real life”. I think we can all agree on that. I also do not think that these jokes are bad in any way. However, the way in which humor and culture in general has shifted to make way for this genre of comedy to enter the zeitgeist is concerning. As younger generations grow up with the omnipresent influence of the internet, social media, and video games, coupled with the cultural narcissism that permeates in all groups of our society, what we are left with is a society destined to become so disconnected that, just by these factors alone, threatens to tear our social fabric to shreds. Or maybe it won’t. Who knows?
This is the frustrating part, nobody knows. This whole “Meta-verse” thing seems to be the direction we are heading. People have been saying for many many years that the next step of human evolution will be our integration with technology. My only question is, how is this considered human evolution? It almost seems like a regression. Instead of challenging ourselves to be the best that we can be, we will turn our bodies and minds over to Artificial Intelligence and high speed supercomputers that will give you any bit of information that you could ever want. As cool as this may seem, and as useful as it could be, I don’t think it is the right move. Why? Because the only thing that technology cannot replicate is the soul. Technology is the pinnacle of the finite world. If we live solely in that finite world, we will lose all sense of reality. That isn’t what the human experience is all about. We are meant to explore our imaginations. We are meant to explore abstract concepts, to solve problems, to use our wit, and to love one another. I have never seen a robot with a heartbeat, or a computer with a soul.
In my mind, human evolution must remain human. Much like the internet, technology is a tool. A tool that should aid in the advancement of our species, in a manner that leads to better lives for everyone. Technology has done that since the dawn of humanity. Why stop now? I think that we all suffer from recency bias in this regard. Only since the turn of the 20th century have we seen these massive, world shifting technological advancements happening in such quick succession. Things like: the radio, television, computers, the internet, airplanes, antibiotics, rocketry, automobiles, various vaccines, oh, and not to mention, electricity. These are all some of the most integral parts of the current human existence, and they have all brought incredible benefits. However, we very rarely speak about the negative aspects of these things. We have all, at one point or another, been born into a world where certain advancements are already integrated into human life. We just accept them as normal, as we have never known a world without them, and cannot fathom the possibility that, in some areas, things have gone a bit too far. The world we live in is so drastically different from the old world, and from the way human beings lived for the first 10,000 or so years of human civilization.
The world we live in today is only about 100 years old. To say that we have perfected the human experience, and always taken the right path in terms of human progression, would be completely wrong. I don’t know what the solution is, but if we can all just change our perception, I think the world will start to become a better place. We will be able to recognize true danger in the world. The shift in perspective that is necessary, is figuring out your own balance between the finite and the abstract. I think we will be better for it.