Help! My Tween Just Called Me an NPC—Should I Be Offended?

I have written plenty about the tween and teen slang I have encountered on my parenting journey, but a new word phrase just crossed my radar and it sounded like some mysterious kind of insult, so naturally I had to investigate. The phrase in question? NPC. If, like me, your tween’s vocabulary makes you feel really, er, out of touch (don’t even get me started on 6-7…), allow me to provide the closest thing to a functional definition of NPC I can.

First, let me start by saying that my Gen Z husband told me that NPC has been around for a “really, really long time.” Ouch. As for what it means, NPC is a term that originated in video game land and it’s an acronym for “non-player character.” What’s a non-player character, you ask? Apparently, non-player character refers to any background character in a game that the player doesn’t actively control. For example, a shop owner who always greets the player with the same simple, scripted lines when they come to buy supplies in the virtual store.

The classification of non-player character has now been adopted to describe people in the real world—you know, people like you (and me) who are perceived by our children as predictable, unoriginal or simply unimportant to the narrative. So, yes, it is indeed an insult of sorts…and you might hear it in a variety of situations when the person saying it has the intention of being dismissive. For example, it could be launched your way if you butt into your kids’ conversation with a friend about, well, pretty much anything. Or if you ask them the same question every time you pick them up from school (i.e., “How was your day?”)

The takeaway? If your kid directs this kind of “OK, boomer” remark your way, you have two choices: defend yourself against future attacks by making a bigger effort to keep your finger on the pulse of cool tween culture—just be careful because part of the NPC trend is directed by people who mimic popular trends without much original thought or authenticity; or, my personal preference, just resign yourself to being a decidedly uncool millennial. After all, if the shoe fits…