September 6, 2019

And yet this isn't "fake news" problem. (It's just a fake opinion that's a waste-of-time problem.)



I'd never heard of NPC, so I thought this was a serious opinion and wasted time on it. If it had been interestingly funny, it wouldn't have been a waste of time.

62 comments:

Mark said...

A white supremacist? NSS. Of course he is. He even had a segment of it on his Chapelle's Show as Clayton Bigsby.

gilbar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Dokes said...

I dont think it was intended to be funny or interesting but rather a blunt parody of the current state of the leftist zietgist

Joe Dokes said...

I dont think it was intended to be funny or interesting but rather a blunt parody of the current state of the leftist zietgist

Ken B said...

Okay, you have this amazing killer satire detection — you say — and you cannot tell “Dave Chappelle is a White supremacist” is satire?

Fen said...

You do know the meaning behind the term NPC though, right?

gilbar said...

See Professor? this is WHY you Need to stick to Straight News sites; like the Babylon Bee
MLB Bans Red Baseball Caps As Symbols Of Hate

Jupiter said...

Dave Chappelle probably is a white supremacist. Certainly he is alt-right. He's a NAZI, and it's OK to punch him in the face. He's a twenty-eight-year-old pimple-faced virgin who lives in his mother's basement.

Ken B said...

I think this example just proves once again that Sean Spicer doesn’t value honesty!

Darrell said...

NPC = Non-Player Characters.

Think the Patty Duke Show theme...they laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike. Or just read your Lefty comments.

Ken B said...

Fen
NPC is code for LLR.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!

Michael P said...

It seems to me that this web site advanced an exceedingly modest proposal.

It reminded me of an incident really in my graduate career, when I encountered a dreadfully earnest paper written in the 1720s. I went to my thesis advisor with a plan to illuminate the sloppy habits of thought of the day, in an effort to prevent them from being repeated in the modern day.

He bluntly rejected my idea for my thesis, alleging that Jonathan Swift did not truly intend for the Irish to engage in cannibalism.

gilbar said...

wait a minute, Michael P?
Just what are you trying to say? I've READ that proposal, while modest; it seemed Quite Sincere

Gospace said...

https://reason.com/2019/09/06/salt-lake-city-major-league-soccer-team-bans-betsy-ross-flag/

Last week this would have been, and may even have been in various blog comments, satire.

And today, it's news.

Jon Ericson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jon Ericson said...

On Humor:

The Daily Wire
Published on Sep 6, 2019

Pretty quick response to this post.

Jon Ericson said...

NPC usage
Origin of NPC


buwaya said...

I thought the Irish already had engaged in cannibalism.
It’s not out of the question, certainly.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Aww, poor you. You wasted time not knowing what other people meant. What a tragedy.

Narr said...

Everybody indulges a little granny-gnawing if survival demands. 'Tis the way of the world.

I loves me some Dave; another American genius.

Narr
Bonus non-PC joke: What is the contribution of the wheelbarrow to Western civilization?

Birkel said...

Hahaha!
Ritmo is an NPC.
Ritmo pretends at emotion.
#sad

Michael P said...

gilbar, I know -- it seems quite sincere. What sad state is this world coming to when what is perhaps the most famous satire in the history of our language is not "interestingly funny"?

buwaya said...

Ritmo is a character to base an NPC off of, certainly. One can play subtle or play broad. Broad works better.
In some games (reference to the early days of D&D, ahem, set of three booklets in the white box days, of which I know something...)
an NPC is an excuse for the dungeon-master to join the game.

n.n said...

#CecileTheAbortionist #CecileTheCannibal

Clinical cannibalism is an amendment of the Planned Parenthood corporate charter, which was conceived with a mandate for population control, social justice, and social progress, then progresses liberally, catastrophically, socially (i.e. normalization) to include human reproductive rites and planned cannibalism (PC) under a cloak of privacy, behind a wall, in their corporate chambers.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
narciso said...

Tom lehr said satire was dead, its actually gonr zombie.

n.n said...

This is a serious topic. It covers the active voice, including skepticism, and the passive voice ("NPC"), including triggers. The passive consciousness, from conception, and the active life following birth, or rather several years, a decade, perhaps two, later, when most of us become viable.

Ben Lange said...

So you can’t tell genuine liberal opinions from outrageous mockery?

D 2 said...

When I first saw the NPC reference, I admit I didn't know the reference.
Instead I thought what they did was make a new slang word by going up one letter to describe the type of hostile people who don't think for themselves, but chant the party line.
Thus M-O-B becomes N-P-C.

tim maguire said...

Satire almost never is interestingly funny. Usually it's obvious and the laughter is agreement, not real mirth.

Jon Ericson said...

Sandra-Fluke-Thats-Not-Funny.jpg

richlb said...

Althouse's war on satire continues unabated.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Awww. Birkel is experiencing sadness. What else is new?

Other than the fact that it's a Friday night and he's all alone.

Matt Sablan said...

And yet there are people who call gay Jewish conservatives Nazis un-ironically.

Ken B said...

Matt Sablan,
Sure, but Althouse boasted she can always tell right away what is an isn’t satire.

buwaya said...

The most charming of NPC's

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yG8qyW9a-H0

Patricia Janeckova in the best bit out of Offenbach.
And Offenbach had his moments.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

The Soviet collusion is serious satire.
The magical, invisible loogie is serious satire.
The teabag coloring of Tea Party is serious satire.
The allegations of diversity and mythical hate crimes is serious satire.
The child that is not a child until defined by individual belief is seriously FUCD... or is it FUCT.

Active and passive actors and voices are serious business.

Narr said...

Bu and a few others are going to get me hooked on Youtube sooner or later.

Narr
Handel-Stutzmann-Jaroussky . . . ouchamagoucha!

JackWayne said...

Althouse needs to get on the mailing list for NPC, IMAO and the Bee. Her sense of satire is atrophied. Too much lefty satire which is usually SNL-bad has created a void in her sense of humor.

veni vidi vici said...

If you've only just now discovered the "NPC meme", you've missed one of the funniest things on the internet in the past few years. No kidding.

This was the height of excellence (photo of billboard in super-high-traffic WeHo at link):
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bill-maher-labeled-npc-by-conservative-street-artists-1175703

A decent "explainer":
https://youtu.be/3TH7MUQ3cfA

And for the ascerbic take, with ample merciless humor:
https://youtu.be/M0aienuCBdg

Enjoy the lunacy.

Shouting Thomas said...

I did watch the show.

It was funny.

The epilogue not so much.

Ann Althouse said...

Out of context, NPC looks generic and meaningless. One assumes, when it’s a press outlet that the N is for News or National or something else boring.

As for the term npc, I did know it and use it myself in discussions, but it just didn’t come across as meaning that in a news-looking website that wasted my time.

Michael K said...

Other than the fact that it's a Friday night and he's all alone.

Says the NPC who has nowhere to go on Friday night. Tired of video gaming ?

Ken B said...

Wait. You knew the NPC term, but didn’t twig to the satire? You, who boasted of her acumen in just exactly that? You who implied your critics were stupid because their satire detectors were slower than yours?

Crazy World said...

He is funny. Let the good times roll.

h said...

There is this (non-satirical, I think) article from yesterday's Root, "The worst white people love Dave Chappelle." https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/all-the-worst-white-people-love-dave-chappelles-sticks-1837747273

quote from the article: "Now, is it possible to like a thing a racist also likes without exposing a deep deficit within you? Of course! I’m sure many racists like pizza because pizza is ... awesome. ... But if you’ve just entered a room, and you find yourself surrounded by Nazis, you should probably ask yourself how you got there and what you need to do to leave."

stlcdr said...

A lot, if not most, humor is in the delivery - especially for something like this. Chapelle, who I can give or take, is a very good comedian. If you want to build humor from that, you have to ratchet it up to 11. At least. This was a 4. At best.

stlcdr said...


Blogger h said...
... [quoting Root magazine]...”because pizza is ... awesome. ... But if you’ve just entered a room, and you find yourself surrounded by Nazis, you should probably ask yourself how you got there and what you need to do to leave."

9/7/19, 5:55 AM


“Look, the clothes aren’t brown, it’s tan. Tan, ok? I look good in tan!”

Ann Althouse said...

"Wait. You knew the NPC term, but didn’t twig to the satire? You, who boasted of her acumen in just exactly that? You who implied your critics were stupid because their satire detectors were slower than yours?"

I didn't know whether it was another overstated social justice warrior opinion or somebody making fun of such people. That was based on the headline. I was annoyed to have to wasted my time going any further. Thinking about a three-letter name for the website wasn't something I chose to do first. It's a boring name and it doesn't try to say this is satire. It tries to looks like RCP or NBC or one of the many generic letter-sets that are names for websites. It's not efficient to contemplate the letters. In fact, it's not efficient to care about whether it's another social justice warrior or somebody making fun of such people. The fun-makers are not doing much other than repeating what they think an sjw would say, so there's really nothing to detect. I clicked through only because I'm interested in what's being said about and done to Dave Chappelle. I think maybe the sjws are cancelling him and I want to monitor that. I wasted my time clicking into something else.

tomaig said...

Methinks though doth protest too much...

tomaig said...

*thou*

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse needs to get on the mailing list for NPC, IMAO and the Bee. Her sense of satire is atrophied. Too much lefty satire which is usually SNL-bad has created a void in her sense of humor."

I see that stuff linked at Instapundit and have for years. My sense of humor is my sense of humor. I really don't want to get it to be more like those places. What is mine is exactly the right size for me. Finding MORE things funny might be considered — in your view — a less "atrophied" sense, but in my view, it's lower quality. I don't think having a great sense of humor means finding the most things funny! If it were, the person with the best sense of humor would be some sadistic freakish monster!

Ann Althouse said...

By the way, Scott Adams talks about NPCs all the time. I listen to his podcast regularly. It's not arcane knowledge, so don't think you're special if you know it.

Anonymous said...

SDaly: Althouse is not Cernovich's (or NPC Daily's) target audience. Kids today understand.

Hmmm. I'm an old lady, and I'm long since familiar with "NPC". (Couldn't tell you who Cernovich is, though, but I've seen the name go by.)

Wasn't twitter banning and censoring (or being asked to ban and censor) all the NPC jokes a while back, because the usual suspects were all butthurt about being "dehumanized" by the mockery? Now, that was funny.

Ann Althouse said...

"Methinks though doth protest too much..."

That's exactly how people try to push Trump back when he fights attacks. I have learned some things from Trump. #1 — Don't get suckered by your opponent's assertion that your fighting works against you. When they make that argument, it's because they are tired of fighting. Keep after them.

Ann Althouse said...

"Hmmm. I'm an old lady, and I'm long since familiar with "NPC"."

These kids today... they don't know how to wield the privileges of youth like we did back in the day. "You're old, so you don't matter" — that worked for us Boomers when we were young, but it doesn't work against us now that we're old. For one thing, it's too damned easy to look up any term or slang expression or song lyric. Is there any arcana of youth that's not searchable on the internet?

Anonymous said...

Commenters: "'NPC' is common knowledge. Funny you're unfamiliar with it."

AA: "It's not arcane knowledge, so don't think you're special if you know it."

Lol.

"Althouse needs to get on the mailing list for NPC, IMAO and the Bee...

Not at all necessary for getting the joke. Don't follow any of 'em myself. Only necessary to not limit yourself to the "prestige", allegedly "non-trashy" media.

AA @8:38: Nothing says you have a sense of humor like defensively explaining your sense of humor. You're right, you're totally like Trump here.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...
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Anonymous said...

AA @8:49: Jaysus, Althouse, that doesn't even make sense.

You're on fire with your Margaret Dumont act this morning.

Rabel said...

Right there up at the top it says -

"This is satire."