Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 4 days ago
I'm not assigning a cause, but US culture, these days, seems to encourage folks to treat others as "NPCs," and that can have rather bad consequences.
It's always been an issue (sort of human nature), but it seems (to this battered old warhorse), that it's a lot more prevalent, these days, than it was, just twenty years ago.
Just that we consider "others," (with the exception of a close entourage) to be "non-player characters." Basically, shallow simulacrums, with no feelings, standalone, not connected with others, and that can be "disposed of," or "forgotten," with no personal consequences.
We don't have to allow anyone other than ourselves, any agency or consideration.
That makes it very easy to reduce everyone else into one-dimensional caricatures, easy to attack, dismiss or neglect.
Like I said, this has always been a feature of normal human tribalism, but it seems to have gotten a shot of steroids, sometime recently.
I have found, for myself, that closely interacting with as many others as possible; especially ones that challenge me, has helped me to avoid that.
A semi-related term to the "NPC" thing is "main character syndrome." It's usually used derogatorily, but it's the idea that someone thinks they're the "main character" of the world; the people they care about are side characters who matter less, and people they don't care about (or know) don't matter at all. "The self as the center of the universe" is another way to phrase it.
Not sure entirely how that's connected to this thread's topic, but it is relevant in social media in general (and maybe TikTok moreso because of its "great" algorithm?)
Can you elaborate on this phenomena?