The NPC meme essentially meant to ridicule the post-election perpetual outrage culture in which liberals simply parrot the latest talking points from their favorite pundits, who do their thinking for them.
The 4chan version is a simple greyed out, expressionless face known as "NPC Wojak" - which has triggered the left so hard that Twitter conducted a mass-banning campaign for accounts promoting the meme, and the New York Times wrote an entire article trying to figure it out.
The Times writes of the Twitter bans:
Over the weekend, Twitter responded by suspending about 1,500 accounts associated with the NPC trolling campaign. The accounts violated Twitter's rules against "intentionally misleading election-related content," according to a person familiar with the company's enforcement process. The person, who would speak only anonymously, was not authorized to discuss the decision. -NYTThere is precisely zero evidence that the accounts were spreading "intentionally misleading election-related content," so we're just going to have to take Twitter's word for it.
Origins:
According to KnowYourMeme, the NPC meme was created in 2016 after an anonymous 4chan user made a threat titled "are you an NPC?" to the /v/ video games board.
On September 5th, 2018, several threads were submitted to 4chan discussing people who did not have an "inner-voice." In the comments sections, many described those who do not have an internal monologue as "NPCs." On September 7th, a grey-colored variation of Wojak began appearing in threads about NPCs (shown below).KnowYourMemeThe triggering begins
After the meme began to spread, Twitter user @brightabyss accused those who "refer to living humans being as NPCs" as being "facist""
And according to KnowYourMeme, "On September 15th, Twitter user @DreddByDawn tweeted that NPC was "dog whistle" used by "fascists." The same day, Twitter user @Sharessan accused a centrist of being a "fascist in denial" after labeling them an NPC. Meanwhile, Twitter user @stackflow33 tweeted a screenshot of the tweets along with the message "What the fuck is even going on anymore? Lmao.""
Angry
Once the meme reached critical mass, it was only a matter of time before Silicon Valley did something about it:
And before they're totally scrubbed from the internet, here are a few NPC memes that slipped through the cracks:
NPCs are even getting ready for Halloween:
More:
Comment: More on the NPC hilarity: