Sociological Reductionism Of The NPC Meme
The “NPC” meme has been taking the internet by storm as of late, and alike most popular trends online, it has already been labelled an alt-right dehumanization project. This pushback of the meme obviously only made it spicier and more validated in its argument. As someone who has spent an unhealthy amount of time in the gaming world, and the meme world, this meme is very intriguing to me. Yes, in some sense it is a rehash of an older zombie meme. Yes, it isn’t aesthetically gifted, but that is the point. As a meme expert, many people ask me “where do memes come from, sir?” and the answer is mostly 4chan. After all, a recent study has shown that essentially most memes are generated by 4chan and the Donald subreddit, which effectively proves the left can’t meme. You may then query, how did these deep web dwellers come to formulate such a strange meme? The answer i think is very clear and can help us understand why this meme is a long time coming. I believe it partly has to do with social media, determinism, solipsism and sociological reductionism.
What is an NPC ?
An “NPC” (non-player character) is a video game character that is controlled by the game’s artificial intelligence (AI) rather than by a gamer. Non-player characters serve a number of purposes in video game, like advancing the plot or simply taking up space to enhance realism. One defining characteristic of NPC’s is that they are incredibly limited in their vocal capability. This is likely because video games are costly and take a great amount of time to build, so naturally the AI will be limited in what it can express. Thus NPC’s are incredibly predictable, and basically arewalking cliches. They also tend to all say the exact same thing, and their phrases are often cloned and applied to all NPC’s.
The Aesthetic of the NPC meme
I believe the aesthetic has to do with something i call archetypal blurring, which was born out of necessity when the EU banned memes. This made people resort to very broad reduced shapes that essentially draw out a blurry image of the meme. The npc meme is similar in the sense that it is a not a detailed image of an individual. It’s also indicative of the fact that NPC’s in video games are often overlooked in terms of texture. Nobody pays that much attention to NPC’s.
Why does this meme apply to SJW’s ?
The meme has been attributed to SJW’s mainly because SJW’s behave in a way that is predictable, and totally unoriginal. Above all, they often use identical phrases, like “problematic” or “systemic.” They also often use the same mannerisms, such as the “clap back” mannerism. This mannerism involves usually a female NPC yelling out a sentence and accentuating her point by clapping her hands together in between words.
Example:
“You👏do👏not👏understand👏real👏oppression👏sweetie”
I personally always believed this meme was a long time coming because of how accurately SJW’s have been parodied since 2016. If one is able to reduce a human being, and all their characteristics down to a sentence or mannerism, they are an NPC. The above example is a sentence that i can wager has been said unironically thousands of times. 4chan was the nexus of this meme because 4channers are amazing at understanding algorithms and patterns on the internet. The behaviour of SJW’s is an example of such patterns.
Another important thing to remember is that SJW’s tend to be activists and protestors, so their entire existence is dedicated to a cause or agenda that likely involves yelling out the same thing over and over again . It’s ironic that they are objecting to the dehumanization of the meme when they have essentially dehumanized themselves to loud herds that yell at senators eating dinner.
What about the right wing? can’t they also be NPC’s ?
As a reaction to the NPC meme, SJW’s did exactly what an NPC would do and accuse the other side of being an NPC (while also claiming it’s an evil dehumanizing tool) This reaction is very similar to how SJW’s tried to hijack the term “snowflake” and use it on right wingers. It’s very simply the kid in the playground saying “no you!”
That being said, it’s important to look at this objectively. The alt-right can absolutely be reduced down to an NPC.
Example:
“I love watching libtard snowflakes melt down over Trump winning, what at bunch of cucks!”
A fundamental understanding of NPC memes will make one realize that we are all NPC’s. I can reduce any collective down to an NPC. I can even reduce contrarians down to NPC’s. The reason why SJW’s are the target of the NPC meme is because they don’t need to be reduced much.
We are all NPC’s [Free Will vs Determinism]
I think the 4channers are absurdists who know that deep down, it can be argued that we are all NPC’s, and this is actually an age old debate. The notion of free will has been challenged by new age atheists for some time. Reductionism certainly is playing a part in this and is evidently relevant in this article. Memes are often an amazing way to reduce structures all the way down to archetypes. These archetypes are fundamentally NPC’s although nobody has made such a claim yet. The reason i say NPC’s are a long time coming is because there were “proto-memes” that prophesied the inevitability of this sociological reductionism. What is this proto-meme you may ask? Well i believe it is none other than the infamous “starter pack” meme.
The reason why the starter pack meme was and still is so popular is because it is often shockingly accurate. So accurate that it truly made me sit down and think about how the internet is now producing an art form that reduces human beings down to their basic characteristics. A neo-archetype of sorts that yes, is dehumanizing. Any sort of reduction is going to be dehumanizing, just like any archetype is dehumanizing. With that all being said, it makes one ponder on the question of free will and determinism. If we are truly free, and everything we do is because of our own voluntary action to make it so, then why are we all just so similar? Why is it that the most difficult people in customer service are soccer moms with the exact same haircut? Does one voluntarily choose this rather unflattering haircut ? or is one collectively programmed to do so ? If it is the latter, and many experts believe it is, then we are all in fact NPC’s. At least this is how it seems.
Finally, i should also add that the prominence of NPC’s is higher now than ever because of social media, which enables people to be NPC’s with ease. The tragedy flag filter is an example of this.
Solipsism, I Am The Player
“Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.” — Wikipedia
This Philosophy has been stuck in my mind ever since the NPC meme emerged. it’s clearly relevant in some way, and i’ve been trying to figure out whether it is a positive or a negative. One could argue that believing you are the player may motivate you to take initiative and not be part of the herd, but are humans really smart enough to know when they aren’t part of a herd ? Maybe he who is 100% confident he is the player is 100% the NPC. Maybe any sort of confidence in anything is indicative of a pre-determined programming, thus rendering yourself an NPC. I recall reading about a study that said a disproportionate number of people have no inner monologue and instead tare just totally pre-determined. This discovery was particularly discouraging to find out as someone who always valued the term, “Sonder”
the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. — Sonder
How to (maybe) not be an NPC
If we are going to use video game terms as a means of reductionism, perhaps we can go the other way. Perhaps the best way to overcome “NPC Disorder” is by looking at life from a third person perspective. A sense of depersonalization may strangely free one to be stoic, like a player in an RPG. Perhaps valuing the divine individual may resolve this issue. The spread of cultural darwinism certainly reduces individuality, so religion may be the answer. This however creates another problem. Religions and religious people can also be reduced down to an NPC. At the end of the day, this is truly a debate of free will and determinism and the question we must ask ourselves is whether none of us have free will, or if only some of us actually do. Maybe a constant inner monologue and skepticism is the antidote to being an NPC. Maybe the problem with SJW’s is that they talk to much, and think too little. Or at all. Maybe it is time for all of us to start playing the game and not let the game play us. DEEP STUFF WHOAH!