The first time someone called you an NPC online, it probably stung a little. Or at least made you Google what it meant.
Now, it’s practically a badge of irony. We joke about it, caption TikToks with it, even turn it into merch. “Just doing NPC things,” people say, sipping iced coffee and staring at their screens.
But beneath the meme lies something uncomfortably familiar. Because deep down, we’ve all had that weird, empty-loop feeling. Like life’s open world is running, but we forgot what the main quest was.
The World Feels Scripted, Doesn’t It?
Wake up. Scroll. Commute. Work. Scroll again. Eat something beige. Maybe talk to one person in real life. Sleep.
Repeat.
We call it routine. But sometimes it feels closer to respawn.
It’s strange how the “NPC” meme caught fire so quickly. Maybe because it describes that dull background hum of existence when you feel like you’re watching yourself go through the motions, a side character in your own timeline. You’re functioning. You’re fine. You’re not really there.
The meme started as a joke about people who “don’t think critically.” But it evolved. Now, it’s shorthand for anyone drifting through a simulation they didn’t design. The girl doing a latte run with AirPods in. The guy talking to no one at the gym but recording every set. The corporate employee typing “noted” for the 10,000th time that week.
All technically alive. Not all awake.
Funny how that happens.
Type 1: The Loop Loader
You know this one, maybe it’s you.
Same playlist. Same grocery run. Same conversation: “We should catch up soon!” (Never happens.) You’re efficient, dependable, and low on chaos. But also, you’ve been living in a saved file since 2020.
The Loop Loader thrives on predictability. The algorithm loves you for it. Your feed is a mirror: same reels, same jokes, same kind of dog. You like it that way until one day, you don’t.
Signs you might be stuck in this mode:
- You narrate your life in second person. (“You got this.”)
- The idea of a spontaneous trip gives you heartburn.
- You can’t remember the last new thing you tried that wasn’t food delivery.
There’s no shame in it. Everyone has a phase like this. The trick isn’t to delete the loop, just hit “manual override” now and then.
Order something you can’t pronounce. Message that old friend. Walk home without music and actually listen to the street. It’s wild what you hear when the script pauses.
Type 2: The Background Player
Every friend group has one. Soft-spoken, steady, mysterious in a way that’s not intentional. They rarely start conversations but are always there.
You’ll find them at the edge of the room at parties, clutching a drink, smiling politely at someone’s story about a crypto side hustle.
Background Players blend in so perfectly they start to vanish from their own memories. Their phones are full of screenshots of other people’s moments. They comment “mood” more often than they feel one.
Still, they’re observant. They see everything the way people talk when they think no one’s listening, the way the world scrolls faster than it breathes. Maybe that’s their gift. To witness without taking center stage.
If that sounds like you, here’s a nudge:
Step into one frame of your own story. Not to perform. Just to exist out loud for a second.
Type 3: The Glitch Poster
Oh, the chaos. The Glitch Poster doesn’t live in the algorithm; they fight it with memes, irony, and random lowercase captions that somehow make more sense than real sentences.
They overshare, then vanish for weeks. Post a deep thought at 2:13 a.m., delete it by 2:20. They are the antidote to monotony and also, occasionally, the cause of it.
The Glitch Poster is painfully self-aware. They know life is absurd, so they perform the absurdity. They make NPC jokes about themselves half kidding, half confessional.
It’s performance art, kind of. It’s also coping.
If this is you, remember: self-parody is not the same as self-expression. It’s fine to laugh at the void. Just don’t let irony become the only language you speak.
Because silence isn’t honesty, and neither is the meme of it.
Type 4: The Main Character (Who’s Tired of It)
This one’s tricky. You’re not an NPC or at least that’s what you tell yourself. You’ve got the Spotify aesthetic, the carefully chaotic apartment, the weekend journaling habit. You post sun-drenched selfies captioned “healing era.”
But somewhere between “main character energy” and real emotional growth, something froze.
You built a highlight reel. You forgot the story.
This type burns bright, then flickers. Always reinventing. Always online. But underneath, there’s fatigue, the quiet kind that comes from performing authenticity for too long.
The cure? Permission to be boring again. Go offline. Cook the same meal twice. Let someone else tell the story for a change.
Main character energy is overrated. NPC peace might be the real goal.
Why the Meme Stuck Around
At its heart, the NPC meme is modern philosophy disguised as internet slang.
It’s about free will, really. About how much of our behavior is ours and how much is programmed by habits, culture, capitalism, code.
We wake up to notifications that tell us who we are. “You might like this.” “People you may know.” “Your memory from 8 years ago.”
It’s not malicious. Just mechanical. The more we scroll, the more we conform to our preferences until the machine knows us better than our friends do.
And maybe that’s why we cling to humor. To call ourselves NPCs is to reclaim a bit of power. To say, “Yeah, I’m in the system, but at least I’m aware.”
Awareness is rebellion.
Even a meme can be a spark.
Micro-Quizzes (for the Self-Aware Scroller)
You don’t need a BuzzFeed quiz to figure out your archetype but humor me.
- When you wake up, what’s the first light you see?
a) Sunlight through curtains
b) Blue glow of your phone
c) The fridge light (midnight snack survivor) - When someone says “let’s do something different this weekend,” what’s your instinct?
a) “I’ll check my calendar.”
b) “Define different.”
c) “Sure.” (Then you ghost them.) - You’re alone in an elevator. What do you do?
a) Check messages.
b) Look at yourself in the mirror.
c) Think about that one conversation from 2017 for no reason. - Your phone battery’s at 1%. You:
a) Panic.
b) Accept death.
c) Take a photo of the warning for irony.
Add up your imaginary points. Then throw them away. Because this isn’t really a quiz it’s a mirror disguised as one.
The Real Question: Who’s Playing Whom?
Sometimes I think about how much time I’ve spent trying to look awake online instead of actually waking up. How many moments I’ve cropped into neat squares and captions that sound profound but mean nothing.
Maybe that’s what the NPC meme is whispering to us not as an insult, but as an invitation.
A reminder that consciousness isn’t guaranteed just because your eyes are open.
So, what if you stopped scrolling mid-loop? What if you looked around your own level, not the trending one, not someone else’s and just noticed where you were?
The smell of your coffee. The soft hum of the fridge. The fact that the world is still happening, even when you’re not documenting it.
Real life has better graphics anyway.
Closing Thought
We can’t all be main characters all the time. And that’s okay. Someone has to populate the world, hold the small moments, keep the background humming.
But maybe the most human thing you can do in a digital simulation is notice the code and decide, even for one day, to play differently.
If this made you pause or smile, explore more playful, thought-provoking quizzes on Trendy Quiz because self-discovery should always feel fun.
