The Psychopath's Illusion:

A common error in judgment by some is the illusion that they can

seriously talk about the masses as though they are separate from
them. A prevalent incarnation of this meme has manifested itself in
places like 4chan under the name “NPC”. The issue with the NPC
meme is that it falls victim to the Psychopath’s Illusion. What is the
psychopath in this instance? The psychopath is the fantasy of the
individual that is memetically seperated from society. All of his
thoughts are his own thoughts, and he decides what he values via his
own internal virtues. The main issue of course, is that this idea in itself
is a meme - as is the NPC meme. By using such tokens, one is
implicitly admitting to being affected and being able to affect society
at large. Thus the fallacy of thinking that one is separate from society
only leads to a demonstration that one is only very much connected to
it. It shouldn’t be a sustainable view yet some still delude themselves
into believing it.

We see a recurrence of this thought process in growing political

ideologies of today. An example of this is with the Centrist. There is a
strong self-deception that lies in their view of the world. The idea that
one is simply picking policies based on merit; regardless of what
ideological camp it stems from. In reality of course, they aren’t the
rational decision maker they believe themselves to be. Surely a
National Socialist, or feminist sees the utmost merit in all the things
they support? There is a misunderstanding that ideology is simply
tribalism. In reality, it is also a lense to interpret the world with. To
reject the notion that you have an ideology is to really only admit that
you are blind to your own biases.

One musk ask, where did this meme start in the first place? First, let
us look at a related meme, the red pill. This meme is disagreeable for a
similar reason the NPC meme is. By taking the redpill, you have
supposedly escaped the depths of ideology. There is a dramatic irony
here that is lost. Escaping the matrix, there was no serious
entertainment of the idea that they may still be in a simulation. This is
what could be called premature critique - the criticism of a concept
without sufficiently taking said critique to its most radical conclusion.
For example, radical doubt only maintains itself until the process of
such skepticism has finally negated its own utility. In this case,
doubting that you are doubting.

We see this premature behaviour here with the redpill. There is an

eagerness to finally see reality - they never ask themselves the radical
negation: ‘Why should I trust these red pillers when I know that I have
already been lied to all my life?’. The reason for this overeagerness can
be argued to be archetypal in nature. Neo’s taking of the redpill and
emergence out of an embryonic capsule here is the birth of the hero.
Similarly, the black pill taken amongst incels can be seen as the birth
of the tragic hero. The self-pity intermixed with small notes of pseudo-
profundity now quite clearly illustrates the intra-communication of
pathos.

Now onto the NPC meme. What is an NPC? (bare with me for being
redundant) An NPC stands for Non Player Character. They are entities
in video games that are preprogrammed to believe the way they do.
This typically makes them predictable, uncritical, non-agential, and
mere representations of the actual people. This surface-level function
of the meme’s dehumanization is clear as a form of rhetorical device.
Beyond this, the term has a noticeable trace - it is etymologically
juxtaposed with what it is not - namely here a player character.
Similarly, saying that one is redpilled implicitly identifies those that
disagree with you as bluepilled. The dehumanization, then, is also done
as an attempt to affirm one’s own agency. This is a reincarnation of
the master-slave dialectic. The users of /r/TheRedPill continue to
attempt at affirming themselves by using women as objects of
pleasure - actively disorienting themselves socially.

Also, as mentioned before, the NPC is merely a representation of a

human being. This is reflected further in the symbolism. The memetic
avatar of the NPC is a mutation of wojak but harbours a now blank
expressionless visage paired with grey flesh. Signals are practically
screaming at us that the empathic process has been severed. The
player character can no longer deeply relate to most of society on a
sufficiently deep level. No recognition is possible to be reciprocated.
He slowly begins to realize that nothing is genuine around him as he is
unknowingly consumed by the terror of the spectacle.

What are the possible causes of such a radically self-alienating meme?

A massive influence of this stems from the politics of modernity. The
polarization and localization of ideologies within the web is hard to
ignore. Another cause of this however is also the illogical stigma
against ideology itself (such attitudes dating back to Orwell or perhaps
even before). This further evolved into the conception of memes as
‘thought contagions’ in which we are the subject of their will. Seeing
as the colloquial usage of the word ‘meme’ originally came from
related websites to which the NPC meme finds its roots (namely
4chan), it is unsurprising that such concepts linger in the communities’
psyche. The original demographic consisted of socially awkward,
isolated, tech-conscious, nerdy white men! There is a reason these
people originally started to post anonymously.
The conflation of ideologies with brainwashing, and traditional memes
as viruses loomed a new threat on the self-concept. This threat is that
of self-agency, and caused the formation of psychological defense
mechanisms. The denial of having an ideology. The need to subvert the
thinking faculties of others to elevate oneself. The active separation
from the programmed virtual world that is modern society. Finally, the
self-aggrandizement. All of this, and they do not see that they have still
yet to wake up - everyone is.

What never crossed their mind that by understanding that the world
they live in is a simulation, they could actively hack into its cultural
fabric. The acceptance that ideology is inescapable is what finally
awakes one to the truth. If the spectre of ideology is a being that
caresses all, then the sorcery of her will means that the individual can
stir all to their will.