“Another example: Two years ago, a video went viral depicting a streamer named “Pinkydoll” pretending to eat ice cream like a dog. “Mm, ice cream, so good,” she repeats, as she collects coins from her viewers. Her eyes are dead, her skin smooth like a Barbie doll’s. In the wake of the video’s virality, a ream of think pieces emerged explaining that this style of content and performance is a genre called “mindless NPC.” It’s named after the side characters in video games who don’t have consciousness, the idea being to mimic the jerky movements and vague sexuality of a computer simulation.

As Joshua Citarella put it on an episode of the New Models podcast, “If you look at TikTok, your body is literally animated by the algorithm—it tells you how to move yourself.” As you follow along, he says, “you end up dancing for this abstract formulation of capital and algorithmic recommendation.“

– Sam Venis

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