I’ve been seeing these videos for at least a year, what I’d call the “NPC in real life” trend on TikTok, videos which involve harassing, embarrassing, or frightening people in public. Harassment is a ...

TikTok creators are embracing a peculiar new live genre in which they stream themselves acting like non-player video game characters. Viewers of such streams become the puppeteers of real-life NPCs, ...

There’s this thing happening right now where our feeds are turning into the weirdest episodes of Black Mirror. One day, you’re scrolling, and America’s Dad, Tom Hanks, tries to sell you a dental plan.

Every second reel on Instagram now contains the same kind of content, comments like “bro won the internet” and “for real,” identical Instagram bios, captions filled with words like “lowkey” and “not ...

The concept of a nonplayable character dates back to the early days of video games. By definition, it is a character — a merchant, mushroom, pedestrian, etc. — designed to exist in the background. You ...