i think the “NPC” insult is dehumanizing and illiberal and *rich* coming from a guy who thinks entirely in mindless dinner party cliches. in fact, all you need to know what he will think about anything is to know what parties he goes to.
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Yes, because this is what you do when you are reduced to calling your fellow humans NPCs. If you cannot engage in adult discourse without resorting to videogame-speak, maybe you started knowingly at a point of weakness.
When I don't want to hear from you, I don't force you to listen to me.
it's so ignorant because a PC is just someone whose entire existence is controlled by a single person; if you're a PC, someone else is telling you where to run, jump, and die
What do you expect someone without intellectual rigor to do?
They have no way to defend the arguments from any sophisticated scrutiny, or they have know reaching out to people's feelings is better than being factual, in this Rennaisance of the ignorant era.
Didn't his Rabbi, George Packer spend an entire career lecturing everyone about human rights and how we shouldn't talk down to certain groups,? Weird how this turned out.
“she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her.” - Orwell
note how the “NPC” insult and the Galileo Gambit (“lots of people disagree with me so i must be right”) are themselves extremely tired and predictable discursive cliches.
They hate Americans. They love the idea of making America theirs and taking it from the Americans they hate: women, LGBTQ+, people of color, Democrats, anyone who disagrees with them. What % of America do you think that is? 70? They hate America.
He seems to that when he mentions you, which he seems to do regularly. WTF? Also that name is a fucking joke. His parents wanted him to be a caricature of rich elitist shitbags, Chatterton? You would get your ass kicked just for that name in a public school.
Even his name is somehow stolen valor. Having a name borrowed from an English poet somehow gives him a patina of literary credibility. Of course his namesake was a fraud as well. Yet our man would nevertheless do well to follow in his footsteps.
The level of bullying on people for showing empathy and emotional intelligence is unrelenting. And their leaders feed it with denials (Vance) that Christ was ever compassionate.
There are many, many phrases that are seemingly innocuous but tell you everything you need to know about the person saying them. NPC, Female (context dependent), Free speech, "My favorite team is the Chiefs"...
Feels like he was watching a movie, the bad guy said “we’re not so different, you and I”, and he thought that was a revelation and wrote his latest “republicans have become the woke right” column on its basis.
People who use NPC as a condescending insult are typically suffering from MCS (main character syndrome). Well, we're suffering from their MCS. They just continue to wander through life like house cats totally dependent on the people they complain at.
I once met him at a party, before I knew who he was, and he sucked up to me because I’d worked on tv shows he admired. Later, I criticized him on Twitter for embracing Jordan Peterson, and he replied that he “regretted being civil” when he met me in person, and then immediately blocked me.
Edgelords lob NPC as an insult against people who follow social conventions of morality and kindness, which they view as a character defect. “Orange man bad, what a predictable and boring response, you normies are all sheep.” It’s so juvenile, lazy, and attention-seeking.
Dehumanization of one's enemies is an essential pillar of fascism.
The new crop calls people "NPCs" instead of rats or demons because they have more experience with videogames than with nature or religion.
From videogames (and tabletop roleplaying games), an NPC is a "non-player character". Think of Toad, telling Mario that the Princess is in another castle.
Fascists describe people as "NPCs" to imply that they have no true inner life or thought process, and merely repeat a handful of the same lines.
In visual memes, "NPCs" are often depicted with this type of grey face, usually in some simplistic four-panel comic meant to demonstrate how their simple programming cannot process the true genius of a conservative telling them that there are only two genders.
What’s so funny is if you follow the definition of NPC - sounds like they’re looking in a mirror:
In video games, a NPC is a non-playable character. A NPC is someone who doesn’t think for themselves or behaves very predictably- they might repeat the opinions of others or speak very predictable
saying “NPC” unironically says everything about the sayer and zero about the sayee. say “I have the shattered empathy of a psychotic toddler” without saying it.
If they know it or not they are still learning. Used to take a generation or two to get people up to speed. Now we have instant communication globally.
as an insult, it comes from anime culture, but it originally started as a simple gaming term to differentiate between the player's character and every other "human" or monster (hence, "characters").
This is just the standard mindset of the narcissist. "I have thoughts and feelings and goals. Everyone else is a mindless machine hurting towards death."
There's a reason their wives and kids end up hating them.
Honestly, I feel for the guy. His parents saddle him with the most forgettable first/last, so he's forced to emphasize his middle name which is dorky as hell but at least memorable. He really had no chance.
In fairness, I think he was named after the poet. Not a family name. And it‘s not the people who have those family names that talk like that. It‘s the ones that resent they don‘t.
Thomas Chatterton Williams is what happens when you have an inflated ego and sense of entitlement instead of anything close to convictions. He’s a fraud.
Had to look up NPC and I've never heard of him, so he seems to fit the label. Fucking twitter maga trolls. Oh, and if one could be "pushed" to maga, one was always a racist misogynist.
NPC isn't even an insult, it's a self-own. The only people who think that way about others are narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths. They famously do not think of other people as having minds, souls or anything. They're just obstacles.
simple. Thomas has an ego problem that is commonly referred to in the digital age as “main character syndrome.” It’s a colloquial term for an elevated sense of importance and overblown ego where you think everyone cares more about you as if you are the center of the whole story, not just your own
My guess is that this is combined with deep, almost crippling imposter syndrome. He is smart enough to know that he's not all that smart and he lives in constant fear of being found out...which, as he's so online, he is on a regular basis.
People like him and Yglesias et al. know they aren't that smart, deep down. They're good at rhetoric and at flattering the egos of powerful men, as those were at flattering the generation of powerful men before them.
this gets at a larger truth about these people—the ones at the top far removed from plebes like Williams— they see the rest of us as NPCs. Williams has the ideology but doesn’t have a minimum of 50 mill, or whatever. Ultimately he’s not real, either. Enjoy getting crushed w/the rest of us, bro. SAD
Standard fascist rhetoric is cast the opposition simultaneously as weak and ineffectual (unmasculine, unvirile) AND as all-powerful and conspiratorially running everything.
It's a wholly incongruous worldview, but it's not about logic, it's an emotional appeal.
To be fair, "illiberal" is in no way an insult considering the abject failure of both classical & neoliberalism in addressing our modern sociopolitical issues
Problem is they are only important in furthering the 'hero's journey' they mean nothing as of themselves. This sociopathy applied to your fellow humans pretty much makes you Patrick Bateman out of American Psycho, or Patrick Chatterton Bateman as we now call the character.
Agreed. I lose all respect for anyone who uses the pejorative NPC. Biggest red flag that indicates lack of empathy and shallow understanding of the real game we’re all supposed to be cooperating in.
Basically, a pre-programmed character in a video game that is there as foil that just follows its programing without a mind of its own or ability to make independent choices.
I love the fact that people who tend to call others NPCs are *exactly* the type of people you would find in games doing nothing but looping to provide the illusion of an immersive world. They even have canned responses in conversations.
i’m reading “the kingdom power and glory” rn and it’s pretty good and then halfway through he unironically quotes TCW out of nowhere and it honestly made me question the entire work
if I was in your position I would be amused but annoyed to be getting lectures about how I'm too fancy to relate to Joe Sixpack when they came from from Monsieur Chattertonne living in the 14th arrondissement
I'm quite surprised to see any adult casually use "NPC" as an insult in public, given that it really does mean, in effect, "not a person." It's very unsettling to me.
I understand it when it's referring to a person with no profile picture, no posts other than replies, no name attached to their ramblings. What drives me up the wall is when THOSE people are calling others NPCs.
I know nothing about him, the insult immediately made think of the kind of man that lays hands on a partner. That selfish ability to diminish another human.
I teach middle schoolers and about 4 years ago, they were using this, but as a joke about what a lame insult it is, so it’s weird for these grown people to be using it as a genuine comment when 12 year olds see the problem with it.
The guy who tried to strangle me a year or so ago called me an NPC until it became clear I could block anything he tried using only my right hand, then he ran away while screaming an entirely different N-word* at me.
There's nothing more empowering for a 63-year-old than having a 20-something's physical attack fail abjectly. Also, nothing builds a sense of community like the dozen or so commuters who stood around doing nothing while this was happening rushing to my aid once the guy took off.
I am not in fact a martial arts master. He was just glacially slow. I spent the scuffle manoeuvring so he wouldn't end up stepping back into King Street traffic, because I was headed somewhere and didn't want the bother of the paperwork involved if he got run over.
Oddly, this was the second time someone directed a wildly inaccurate racial slur at me. I had an Asian student at UW berate me for being an Arab (or at least from the Middle East--the slur was ethnographically imprecise). Maybe the Volcanoes National Park hat confused him.
“NPC” sounds like deluded middle school nonsense. A “playable” character that can be manipulated by outside forces (the person playing the game) is better than a character that isn’t controlled by anyone?
It's an easy way for him to dismiss the feelings and opinions of those that don't agree with him, because he thinks they are programmed to those conclusions not that intelligent discourse could lead to any ends but his own.
NPC is such a dumb insult because, in rpg parlance where it comes from, it just means non player character. An npc is, crucially, still a character. Still a three dimensional person in the logic of the game. If they're not, they're a shitty npc.
rpg stands for role-playing game. So think Dungeons and Dragons for an old school example or Dark Souls for a more recent one. The player adopts an in universe character that they control, usually giving them a backstory and motivation for participating in the events of the game.
npc stands for non player character and in a role-playing game it refers to any in universe character controlled by the Game Master (in the case of a table top roleplaying game) or the computer (in the case of a computer role playing game)
It's been such a long time since I saw brain drool from Thomas Chatteringclass Willyoushutup. Ah well, I saw a Cybertruck yesterday too. If someone farts in an elevator with me today that'll make it a set of three.
A trainer told our class the story of an asking him to sign his Jordan’s and he was particularly cruel in refusing. He was only about 12 year old when it happened.
He is not worthy of his good fortunes.
Is there anyone you disagree with that you don’t block? Him and Yglesias and the other “centrists” are all vehemently anti-Trump (as everyone should be).
Is shrinking your tent at this moment of history wise? (You don’t have to agree. I won’t bug you if you don’t. If you just block me instead..🤷🏻♂️)
He's spending an awful lot of time on it for someone who is trying to serve unbothered. We all see the attention he needs and that he's mad his Instagram modeling career didn't work out, he needs that Insta thot level attention to feel validated, which is a hilarious space for an intellectual.
Came from video games...a non-player character. They walk around in the game and are basically props...they don't have a useful, meaningful role. My grandkids called each other NPC's after playing Nintendo games...I think Lego one? Back in like 2010-12?
So convinced of their intellectual superiority are they that they fall in love with the image in polished high albedo surfaces while losing sight of what others see.
I just found out about that guy this week, and man does he suck. He seems like a liberal Tucker Carlson or something, just getting people riled up for the wrong reasons and trying to convince people race doesn't affect lived experiences.
The npc line must always be so frustrating to write when the “npcs” have comparably so much more clever and professionally written retorts. Must be like living in a Disco Elysium game or something
You aren't missing much. And both aptly and ironically, NPC (Non-Player Character, a video gaming term) is much more important than whom Mr. Williams is (some pundit).
Isn't using the term "NPC" an example of blindly following group thought? I had to look up what it meant - seems like a cliquish socialite acronym that people in the "cool crowd" parrot as they run in the same group-think circles.
The greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled. ~Aldous Huxley
Paraphrased: "a majority of the population has hopes and desires I don't think highly of because they prioritize their comfort and beliefs" ~Aldous Huxley
If that's the definition anyone is using for "NPC", then it clearly shows the willful disregard for others' humanity
see also Edolf buying his success in Path of Exile, calling himself elite and getting publicly obliterated at that and Diablo. the NPC accusation is a confession
It's especially galling when the person doing it is tweeting out an entirely "insular discursive space" phrase like NPCs to describe his opposition. The very idea that insular discursive spaces favor woke liberalism is, in itself, demonstrably a heaping pile o' crapola.
I suppose we are all meant to casually dismiss the very real power of the extremist pipeline online, how it was financially supported by dark money from Christo-fascist think tanks (like Heritage Foundation) & forget watching it radicalize a generation of socially isolated people in real time.
Elon musk funds many extremist right disinformation/ hate sites online and has for many years now . Using crypto currency he and a handful of other right wing extremist billionaires pay for anti American, anti democracy email spammers and online recruiting efforts . Hellfckngoooo ppl wake the fck up
Absolutely! There was a whole lot of outright and undercover grooming of vulnerable, isolated online folks by people who have (I hope by now) demonstrated that they are caricature levels of mustache twirling villains. And that's before we get to Putin and his known online ops, plural ops.
And they don’t actually want to debate. You offer any targeted questioning of their position or ask them to back it up with primary sources and they vanish like smoke.
My new position is that they have to create anything concrete with their own lil selves before anyone has to talk to them. Grow a plant, bake a pie, or paint a picture, then they can try to explain why these tired, boring ideas are better than pie.
Thank you! I'm the same, regarding Jordan,but I'm wondering why his picture was in the original post. I'm looking through this thread,and so far,this has been the only mention of MJ. I went into this, thinking MJ had gone full MAGA or something
Ok but have you seen a tourist in nyc try to navigate? They literally (and I mean Oxford definition of literally) stand on the corners and turn in circles until they figure out which way north is. Like a video game npc.
Yes. Also, in tabletop RPGs, NPCs are run by a human GM and can, at least in theory, have every bit as much substance and ”agency” as player characters. To an old-school gamer this ”insult” is incredibly dumb.
Yep. In my gaming circles (tabletop and LARP) the term NPC is falling out of favor for this very reason. Everyone is a real human person and an important part of the game we are playing together, regardless of which kind of role they are taking on at any given time.
People who call others NPCs have already surrendered their own agency to someone else's reality. The irony is so dense it's smoothed the wrinkles of their brain.
Non-playable character. It's a term in video games for characters that are not controlled by the player. It's been co-opted as an insult to basically the target can't think or form their own opinions
The term predates videogames. In D&D, NPC can be as powerful as the dungeon master desires. The way it is being used here is to describe what is essentially a background character with no impact on the plot
Preeeeeetty sure the term "NPC" in this context doesn't draw its original meaning from a traditional D&D NPC; it draws it from videogames, mostly because it originated on 4chan on a primarily-gaming-focused board. I don't think it's background characters. It's a perjorative aimed at blind sheep/bots
Yea man, I'm well aware, I've played DnD since I was ~12. However, explaining a concept in 300 characters doesn't facilitate providing an entire oral history of the term. The pop-culture use is heavily adapted from video games and it very much means an inability to form individual opinions/thoughts.
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When I don't want to hear from you, I don't force you to listen to me.
What do you expect someone without intellectual rigor to do?
They have no way to defend the arguments from any sophisticated scrutiny, or they have know reaching out to people's feelings is better than being factual, in this Rennaisance of the ignorant era.
That said, only 20k blocking him? Let's crank that number higher.
Or something like that.
His penis measures almost 1”.
This is the first I heard of him, thankfully. No doubt it will be the last.
The new crop calls people "NPCs" instead of rats or demons because they have more experience with videogames than with nature or religion.
Fascists describe people as "NPCs" to imply that they have no true inner life or thought process, and merely repeat a handful of the same lines.
In video games, a NPC is a non-playable character. A NPC is someone who doesn’t think for themselves or behaves very predictably- they might repeat the opinions of others or speak very predictable
Is that just a north-of-middle aged man thing or is it *waves hands* all of this?
Just because it happens to be our species doesn't mean we can't see we aren't helping.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vkczlva5sy35uogina7mcf7z/lists/3lgj46ps3re2s
And this is an insult to him, is it?
Pertinent handle and/or names obscured, for the preservation of discretion.
Like imagine describing exactly what it means to a random coworker without looking like the biggest dork in the office?
A dork and a person who admits they don’t think other people count as people.
Cricket updates 🏏🔥
There's a reason their wives and kids end up hating them.
The question for me is whether that’s a learned behavior or a biological function.
Toddlers are basically all narcissists, they don’t have that function and there’s an argument that NPD is a developmental disorder.
It’s a behavior, like if someone falls and ppl walk past obliviously. The lack of awareness, opinion or thought.
Nobody is a ‘NPC’
These guys sound like the cops who thought sex workers didn’t matter when they were being murdered. They had a dehumanizing term for it too
'The cops don't seem to care
For derelicts or ladies of the night
They're weeds for yanking out of sight'
Hence the shutting off of replies, etc.
http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths
It's a wholly incongruous worldview, but it's not about logic, it's an emotional appeal.
They often provide essential information that can save your life somewhere down the road.
“desirable” should not be a word used to describe any child for any reason
NPCs are actually an important part of any RPG.
Been this way since like 2015 at least!
He really could just abandon his race grifting business and get an actual job if he is so disgusted.
White people have made it clear that they are not in need racism translators. His business is drying up. 🤷🏽♀️
but of course #blueskyisnotyourfriend
ah, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckYPwQj_NM
I mean fuck off Nazi is ad personam.
(Runs away cackling)
The eternal conservative reflex to talk endlessly about responsibility as a psychological cover for the avoidance of it.
* I am a haggis-filled potato.
He is not worthy of his good fortunes.
Is shrinking your tent at this moment of history wise? (You don’t have to agree. I won’t bug you if you don’t. If you just block me instead..🤷🏻♂️)
So convinced of their intellectual superiority are they that they fall in love with the image in polished high albedo surfaces while losing sight of what others see.
https://youtu.be/6G8fu50VRXo?si=YKdp8QBRkawXuXqr
Same mentality.
If that's the definition anyone is using for "NPC", then it clearly shows the willful disregard for others' humanity
“pay attention to me, look at me”
We live in an age where anyone can sound off on the internet. Debate me bros are just trying to expand their brand.
For video games, the NPCs are the only models with a consistent code of ethics. And Fallout 76 suuuucked without the NPCs.
For ttrpgs, the NPCs are usually more fleshed out than the PCs - unless your DM just sucks.
"Anyone got a couple of D10's lying around? I'm trying to calculate percentages."
Like from video games.
NPC are just background noise