TikTok’s Non-Playable Character Trend Turns Strangers Into Content
From using it as an insult to becoming one, why is TikTok obsessed with NPCs?
TikTok’s obsession with main character energy has also spawned the Non Playable Character (NPC) trend, and frankly, its dehumanising.
For years now TikTok has thrived on white women going viral for doing dances stolen from Black women, and tropifying everyday existence into story archetypes. In 2021, “main character energy” broke free from the app into everyday lingo. Best friends all over the app were uploading their real-life “best friends to lovers” stories inspired by the popular fiction trope, and this year users began to curate their lives into Wes Anderson vignettes. If there’s one thing TikTok loves, it’s making its users into characters. But is that necessarily a good thing?
What Is An NPC?
Derived from video game jargon, NPC stands for Non-Playable Character, and is the acronym ascribed to characters who essentially operate as “extras” in a video game. NPCs are not protagonists or antagonists; their job is to fill out and populate the world around the main character. At most, they function to give the main character tips or directions, but ultimately, they have little to no bearing on the plot or the life of the main character. All in all, it’s not exactly the way you’d want to label yourself.
However, the NPC concept has been taking TikTok by storm for a while. From popular streamers adopting NPC-like personas in live-streams to hustle-obsessed influencers informing their followers what not to wear if they don’t want to be an NPC to certain users using the term to refer to strangers — it’s everywhere.
The Current Wave Of NPC Live-Streams
The trend has once again been brought to the fore of For You Pages everywhere by TikTok user and popular streamer pinkydoll. According to Junkee reporter Ky Stewart, PinkyDoll has rocketed to fame in the world of TikTok LIVE for performing as an NPC in her livestreams. For every kind of token given by her followers, PinkyDoll has a set reaction that she repeats over and over again, like a non-playable character.
According to the New York Times, PinkyDoll is making up to $7000 USD a day by behaving similarly to an NPC. Allegedly, ’00s R&B producer Timberland is PinkyDoll’s number-one fan, too. Indeed, her exploits are so successful that other notable influencers like Trisha Paytas have gotten in on the action.
Other TikTok users have made a name for themselves engaging in NPC streaming as particular kinds of characters. User cherrycrush_tv claims in her bio to be, “your very own Tamogotchi,” spending most of her livestreams reacting with repetitive eating sounds as her fans send her tokens. Another popular TikTok LIVE user is leaks._.world, who cosplays as a Spider-Man: Miles Morales NPC.
Some have speculated content like PinkDoll’s, cherrycrush’s and leaks’ could be control fetish content, aka content for folks who get their kicks from exerting control over others. TikTok has garnered somewhat of a reputation for being overrun with fetish-related content, particularly in relation to food. In a piece for Lifehacker earlier this year, Stephen Johnson argued that, even without actively seeking it out, users are probably interacting with dozens of fetish videos a day.
Of course, NPC LIVE’s could also just be the latest gimmick. In the oversaturated wild west of livestreaming, everyone needs a niche. Everyone has something that makes them stand out. Perhaps by emulating non-playable characters in a video game by popping popcorn with a hair-straightener on command, PinkyDoll has pioneered the way forward for a new sub-genre of livestream persona: one that is both unique, adaptable, and maintains anonymity.
The First NPC TikTok Trend
This is not the first time TikTok users have been taken by the idea of NPCs. Last year, a trend saw TikTok creators using the term to simply refer to strangers out in public. These creators would barge onto trains to film commuters’ reactions to their strange behaviour, titling the videos things like, “telling NPCs weird things,” or “confusing strangers/npcs.” One creator filmed a stranger doing the splits in public with the caption, “the NPCs are evolving”.
During this time, content creators would also make TikToks that were “guides” on how to avoid being or looking like an NPC. User navkuttan has a video with over 1 million views on that very topic, with their advice on how to dress like a “main character” mostly masking as sponsored fashion content. Other notable contributions to this element of the NPC trend included, user _drippy69_’s thrilling multi-part series on “Shoes Only NPCs Wear”. If anything, the use of NPC as a concept in these videos serves as a thinly veiled classist insult where “avoid looking like an NPC” is code for “how to look wealthy”. Have I mentioned capitalism sucks?
It’s one thing for individual users to refer to themselves as, or even emulate, NPCs. But something about thinking of total strangers as extras to exploit in one’s own life does not pass the vibe check. For starters, strangers are not content fodder. Why? Because people are people, not filler, and while it is not legally required to ask permission to film in public, that doesn’t mean it’s ethical to treat total strangers as content.
Covering the 2022 NPC trend on Zee Feed, Crystal Andrews proposed that referring to ourselves and others with trope-oriented language is dehumanising. The underlying assumption of an NPC is that they have no meaningful life of their own, that they’re not really “real”, and that they exist to react to you.
On an app where people frequently use film and television narrative analysis terms like the “male gaze” and “written by a man” to describe themselves, it’s perhaps no surprise the use of this language has evolved into embodying the belief that people are merely fodder for the story of our lives. The NPC streamer trend is many things, but its arguably a powerful example of how the words we use for one another shapes how we behave. Human lives are far more complicated and far more precious than any trope or tech jargon can encapsulate, despite what certain corners of TikTok would have you believe.