Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 30 of 141

Thread: How The 'NPC' Meme Tries To Dehumanize 'SJWs'

  1. #1

    How The 'NPC' Meme Tries To Dehumanize 'SJWs'

    https://kotaku.com/how-the-npc-meme-...jws-1829552261

    From time to time, and especially if you’re a fan of science fiction, you may have had the thought that nobody around you is actually real. That sentiment has taken root in anti-progressive parts of the internet as a dehumanizing meme, and it borrows some familiar gaming terminology.

    About a month ago, a meme along those lines took root on 4chan and among anti-progressive online communities. It’s called the NPC meme and it goes like this: Out there in the world, there are literal NPCs—the term for non-playable characters in video games—who have no internality whatsoever. There are some giveaways, of course. They spit out canned lines—“Good weather today, huh?”—and flock to normie trends (are Ugg boots still a thing?) and, for the most part, share the same uncritical worldview. The classic melancholy meme Wojak, a sad man crudely drawn in Microsoft paint, has now received the NPC treatment with NPC Wojak:



    Part crackpot social theory and part elementary school insult, the NPC meme originated from a deeply comical medley of bogus physics and stupid religion found on the messaging board 4Chan. Originally posted in 2016, it resurfaced last month. “I have a theory that there are only a fixed quantity of souls on planet Earth that cycle continuously through reincarnation,” a 4Chan poster wrote. “However, since the human growth rate is so severe, the soulless extra walking flesh piles around us are NPC’s [sic], or ultimate normalfags, who autonomously follow group think and social trends in order to appear convingly human.” NPCs aren’t even worthy of a classic wake up, sheeple. They can’t!

    Here’s where things get interesting. Around the time a lot of us were assigned to read The Catcher in the Rye in middle school, it was normal to have edgelord thoughts about phonies or being one of the few who is capital-A awake. The NPC meme takes things a step further into a political zone where mass outcry against, say, serial harassers, racial injustice, or Trumpian ideas is dismissed as not just inherently uncritical but prima facie evidence of a lack of human consciousness.

    NPCs, the poster continued, “say the same $#@!,” including “SPORTSBALL,” “THE NEW ADELE SONG XD OMG” and “JUST BE YOURSELF.” The poster also cites a political example: “TRUMP IS HITLER,” adding:

    “If you get in a discussion with them it’s always the same buzzwords and hackneyed arguments. They’re the kind of people who make a show of discomfort when you break the status quo like by breaking the normie barrier to invoke a real discussion. it’s like in a vidya [game] when you accidentally talk to somebody twice and they give you the exact same lines word for word once more.”

    Essentially, some large portion of society (normies, pop-culture fanatics, and Trump-haters, among others) who speak in cliches are, in fact, NPCs with no internality, agency, or capacity for critical thought. Like townies in Pokemon idly parked outside the same house day and night, constantly ready with the same contrived one-liners, these IRL NPCs aren’t thinking for themselves. They can’t.

    The two-year-old 4Chan post, despite its laughable premise, fueled a meme last month that has some scary implications. “How to tell when someone is an NPC,” wrote anti-SJW alt-right journalist Ian Miles Cheong on Twitter last month. (Update—8:15 pm: Cheong returned a request for comment to note that he does not consider himself to be alt-right). “Logic and facts in an argument do nothing to change their mind and only cause them to just repeat themselves ad infinitum. Like a limited dialogue script that loops on itself in a video game.” In the last month, Cheong has referred to several people as NPCs: An individual who insisted that the “okay” hand symbol, which has been misconstrued as a white supremacy symbol, is racist and using it is fireable; someone who might “read bell hooks in college to impress a girl in gender studies elective class”; people who “misuse the word ‘trauma’ to refer to any mildly uncomfortable experience”; and, ironically, a former New Yorker fact-checker who claimed on Twitter that “the vast majority of men simply do not consider women to be full human beings.”

    In some corners of the internet, NPC is beginning to replace the term “SJW.” According to ex-World of Warcraft dev Mark Kern, NPCs have the following qualities: “Incapable of independent thought. Wants everything done for them. (Quests) Constantly needing coddling (escort quests).” He published his checklist after another developer accused him of being a “right wing hack.” The tweet evidently was meant to compare so-called SJWs to these NPCs.

    It’s a now-common refrain on Reddit, with posts on /r/The_Donald saying, “The Left is just a meme of lunacy come to life. They’re just NPCs in the game of life” or, in reference to economic experts widely condemning tariffs, “here we are with one of the best economies in US history. Only brainwashed NPCs believe what ‘experts’ say when those claims are contradicted by reality!.”



    What makes this marginal, stale meme built on edgelord logic worth half a thought is what the idea of an NPC speaks to. NPCs have no agency; NPCs don’t think for themselves; NPCs don’t perceive, process, or understand; NPCs arrive at the same worldview not because it’s authentic to their experiences, but automatically. As a descriptor, it suggests that those to whom it applies aren’t even human, but are rather, functionally, robots, or clusters of computer code. That this has resonated as widely as it has is funny, but also a little scary.

    It’s one thing to claim that a person’s strongly-held views are informed by nothing at all, but entirely another to imply that they’re completely on auto-pilot. That is dehumanization, a way of reconceiving your enemies as objects, pawns, strawmen, tools. At best, dismissing large swaths of people you disagree with this way betrays a lack of empathy for people whose experiences differ from yours, and an unwillingness to consider that if a vast number of people happen to agree over something, it may be good to examine why; at best, it is a great utility for spreading bogus conspiracy theories.

    But who among us can say they’ve never mashed “A” as a some expository NPC rambled on, wishing all the while they had the option to silence them or worse?



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    It is ridiculous (and obviously intended to be) but if they don't want to be mistaken for NPCs they should stop acting like NPCs.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  4. #3
    There's no need to dehumanize SJWs. Communists aren't human to begin with.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by thoughtomator View Post
    There's no need to dehumanize SJWs. Communists aren't human to begin with.
    They have dehumanized themselves, it's not our fault if we notice.
    Last edited by Swordsmyth; 10-11-2018 at 12:09 AM.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  6. #5
    THE SQUAD of RPF
    1. enhanced_deficit - Paid Troll / John Bolton book promoter
    2. Devil21 - LARPing Wizard, fake magical script reader
    3. Firestarter - Tax Troll; anti-tax = "criminal behavior"
    4. TheCount - Comet Pizza Pedo Denier <-- sick

    @Ehanced_Deficit's real agenda on RPF =troll:

    Who spends this much time copy/pasting the same recycled links, photos/talking points.

    7 yrs/25k posts later RPF'ers still respond to this troll

  7. #6

  8. #7
    Golding
    Member

    bot

  9. #8
    https://twitter.com/SharzinL/status/1050758539516370944






  10. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  11. #9
    NPCs are very real, or at least the meme gets at a very important truth. There are millions of people who have no real, rich, internal monologue. Whose taste in music is decided by the top 40, who see every Marvel film on opening weekend, who believe all the safe political opinions pre-packaged by Hollywood and the MSM and who take copious amounts of selfies. "NPC" is pretty nice compared to what they really are.
    NeoReactionary. American High Tory.

    The counter-revolution will not be televised.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by ThePaleoLibertarian View Post
    NPCs are very real, or at least the meme gets at a very important truth. There are millions of people who have no real, rich, internal monologue. Whose taste in music is decided by the top 40, who see every Marvel film on opening weekend, who believe all the safe political opinions pre-packaged by Hollywood and the MSM and who take copious amounts of selfies. "NPC" is pretty nice compared to what they really are.
    Hey, Marvel films kick ass.

    But yesh, there are people who become ideologically possessed. Everything they say is straight from a text book, whether Rand, Mises, Marx, or Sarte, they have an uncritical worldview and an answer for everything.
    In New Zealand:
    The Coastguard is a Charity
    Air Traffic Control is a private company run on user fees
    The DMV is a private non-profit
    Rescue helicopters and ambulances are operated by charities and are plastered with corporate logos
    The agriculture industry has zero subsidies
    5% of the national vote, gets you 5 seats in Parliament
    A tax return has 4 fields
    Business licenses aren't a thing
    Prostitution is legal
    We have a constitutional right to refuse any type of medical care

  13. #11
    If you tell people that they have a right to an opinion on everything (indeed, a responsibility to have an opinion on everything), you can be sure that they'll adopt one. Even if they know nothing about the subject and have to grab an opinion at random off the shelf, no matter; they'll only defend that opinion all the more violently, in an attempt to prevent anyone from discovering their shame. This is the cause of the militant stupidity that dominates politics (and not only among the SJWs, I might add). If theoretical physics were organized in the same way, you'd see illiterates venomously hurling slogans about Quantum Mechanics at one another. It's not really the people, it's that they're being asked (practically ordered) to participate in things beyond their understanding. If you asked them, and they could reply honestly, I think you'd find that the vast majority would happily return to being spectators in these matters, and go about their lives focusing on the things that they actually care about.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    If you tell people that they have a right to an opinion on everything (indeed, a responsibility to have an opinion on everything), you can be sure that they'll adopt one. Even if they know nothing about the subject and have to grab an opinion at random off the shelf, no matter; they'll only defend that opinion all the more violently, in an attempt to prevent anyone from discovering their shame. This is the cause of the militant stupidity that dominates politics (and not only among the SJWs, I might add). If theoretical physics were organized in the same way, you'd see illiterates venomously hurling slogans about Quantum Mechanics at one another. It's not really the people, it's that they're being asked (practically ordered) to participate in things beyond their understanding. If you asked them, and they could reply honestly, I think you'd find that the vast majority would happily return to being spectators in these matters, and go about their lives focusing on the things that they actually care about.
    Which is why there is nothing worse than a non-partisan get out the vote drive.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  15. #13
    Banned


    Blog Entries
    1
    Posts
    7,273
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    If you tell people that they have a right to an opinion on everything (indeed, a responsibility to have an opinion on everything), you can be sure that they'll adopt one. Even if they know nothing about the subject and have to grab an opinion at random off the shelf, no matter; they'll only defend that opinion all the more violently, in an attempt to prevent anyone from discovering their shame. This is the cause of the militant stupidity that dominates politics (and not only among the SJWs, I might add). If theoretical physics were organized in the same way, you'd see illiterates venomously hurling slogans about Quantum Mechanics at one another. It's not really the people, it's that they're being asked (practically ordered) to participate in things beyond their understanding. If you asked them, and they could reply honestly, I think you'd find that the vast majority would happily return to being spectators in these matters, and go about their lives focusing on the things that they actually care about.
    That is some pretty amazing insight after 13,906 posts of useless garbage.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Which is why there is nothing worse than a non-partisan get out the vote drive.
    Yes, a practical joke at the expense of the general public.

    And then there's mandatory voting...

    Last edited by r3volution 3.0; 10-13-2018 at 12:21 AM.

  17. #15
    NPCs sound better than sheeple

    From an Epistemological Solipsism viewpoint they may be on to something. Although I'd really hope if everything else was a figment of my mind that I'd have a more entertaining viewpoint.

    https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/m...alization-npc/
    “…let us teach them that all who draw breath are of equal worth, and that those who seek to press heel upon the throat of liberty, will fall to the cry of FREEDOM!!!” – Spartacus, War of the Damned

    BTC: 1AFbCLYU3G1dkbsSJnk3spWeEwpqYVC2Pq

  18. #16
    https://twitter.com/resist12359914/s...04429545230336




  19. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  20. #17
    https://twitter.com/npc0100482/statu...11095749591045


  21. #18

  22. #19


    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  23. #20




    https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1051176614757711872


    https://twitter.com/Coldsteel118/sta...98630067068928
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  24. #21
    This meme is golden.
    "The Patriarch"

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    If you tell people that they have a right to an opinion on everything (indeed, a responsibility to have an opinion on everything), you can be sure that they'll adopt one. Even if they know nothing about the subject and have to grab an opinion at random off the shelf, no matter; they'll only defend that opinion all the more violently, in an attempt to prevent anyone from discovering their shame. This is the cause of the militant stupidity that dominates politics (and not only among the SJWs, I might add). If theoretical physics were organized in the same way, you'd see illiterates venomously hurling slogans about Quantum Mechanics at one another. It's not really the people, it's that they're being asked (practically ordered) to participate in things beyond their understanding. If you asked them, and they could reply honestly, I think you'd find that the vast majority would happily return to being spectators in these matters, and go about their lives focusing on the things that they actually care about.
    I can't remember exactly when this started, but I remember sometime around 5 years ago, 5-10, when msm really started pushing hard the idea that teenaged girls really really needed to have opinions, and that everyone really really needed to listen to their opinions. Now (((they))) knew full well that teenage girls did really not actually have opinions on so many things, but (((they))) knew that, if forced to have opinions, the teenage girls would get their opinions from (((them))).

  26. #23

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by parocks View Post
    I can't remember exactly when this started, but I remember sometime around 5 years ago, 5-10, when msm really started pushing hard the idea that teenaged girls really really needed to have opinions, and that everyone really really needed to listen to their opinions. Now (((they))) knew full well that teenage girls did really not actually have opinions on so many things, but (((they))) knew that, if forced to have opinions, the teenage girls would get their opinions from (((them))).
    LOL, can you imagine if the whole political class and media consisted of teenage girls yelling at each other?

    ...o wait




  28. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    LOL, can you imagine if the whole political class and media consisted of teenage girls yelling at each other?

    ...o wait


    He touched my booby in high school, so no S Ct for him.

  30. #26
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  31. #27


    Last edited by AZJoe; 10-16-2018 at 08:23 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  32. #28
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  33. #29
    Account Restricted. Admin to review account standing


    Posts
    28,739
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    The left is a virtual hivemind. The NPC label fits well. Sure, we have drones on the right, but not to the degree of the left, which is almost built on a cult-like conformity to madness.

  34. #30
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast


Similar Threads

  1. Can two SJWs get divorced?
    By timosman in forum Open Discussion
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 09-11-2018, 12:22 AM
  2. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 09-16-2017, 06:22 PM
  3. Best discussion on PC, SJWs, Marxism etc I've heard
    By The Northbreather in forum Political Philosophy & Government Policy
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 12-01-2016, 12:39 AM
  4. How SJWs neutralize rival institutions
    By Lucille in forum Grassroots Central
    Replies: 16
    Last Post: 10-19-2016, 11:44 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •