For the uninitiated, NPC is video game jargon for “non-playable character”. In other words, a character that isn’t controlled by a human that has pre-programmed thoughts and actions. To be an NPC in the social media world is to be someone who lacks individuality and just rolls with whatever the algorithm feeds them. If you’re kept up at night at the thought of becoming like this (or unknowingly already being like this), then you, like countless others, might just have NPC anxiety.

- Devin Pike, Guest Editor 💜

And it’s clear you haven’t just lost them. You’ve lost the deal.

Well, that doesn't have to be you anymore. Because in this 90-minute session taught by Nathan James, Executive Creative Director at The Attention Seeker, you’ll learn the real art of selling subjective ideas (from someone who’s worked with some of the world’s biggest brands).

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✅ Keep the room hooked from your first sentence to the final slide
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✅ Use their objections to strengthen your pitch

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Forget “we’ll think about it.” You’ll leave this session knowing how to make every client say, “please take my money.”

Thursday, 4 Dec | 8:30 - 10am NZT | $49

One being the cultural behemoth that was the show itself, and two being the “one-show-to-rule-them-all” model Netflix basically invented for itself. The hype for season 5 feels muted for a bunch of reasons: the streaming landscape is saturated, Netflix slowed releases to a glacial pace, and there’s also the fact that… the kids are like 30 now.

Maybe that’s why we’re all a little foggy on what even happened last season. Instead of banking on “tentpoles” like Stranger Things, House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, etc. to hold the platform together, Netflix’s strategy is now pure niche farming: anime fans here, live-sports people there, Emily-in-Paris girlies everywhere. Stranger Things will still do numbers, obvs, but it no longer has to carry the entire empire. The streamer has outgrown its need for a singular phenomenon. We must face it: we’re in an entirely new era, that of fragmented audiences. Get with it or get lost.

Could have called this, honestly. Thousands of retailers from supermarkets to fashion brands have banded together to sue the fast-fashion giant for unfair competition, accusing it of luring shoppers with fake promos, dodgy products, and years of skirting safety standards.

They’re asking for up to €3 billion in damages. This comes after French authorities temporarily shut down Shein’s site and inspected 200,000 packages at the airport, where a casual 80& failed EU compliance (which is… frankly, insane). Add in the scandal over “childlike” sex dolls being sold on the platform, and public sentiment has snapped. Protests erupted outside Shein’s first Paris store, expansion plans have stalled, and France is now pushing the EU to investigate too. It’s open season on fast fashion’s biggest disruptor, and Shein is finally fair game.

That’s up a whopping 26% from last year, and almost triple 2021’s spend. Suddenly “creator campaigns” aren’t optional, they’re third in line after paid search and social media. Brands are leaning on creators mostly for awareness and audience reach, but a solid chunk now aims for conversions and real sales.

AI is riding shotgun on the growth wave, about ¾ of advertisers use (or plan to use) AI for editing, briefs, and personalisation in creator content. But fears linger: many worry it’ll kill that human-to-human vibe that makes creators relatable. Only time will tell, I guess.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

What if we never got on social media? What if it didn’t exist? What would we all wear? What would we think? Would we have had a chance at individuality, true individuality, not “I wore something edgy I saw on Pinterest and made it my whole aesthetic with the thousands of other girls who did it before me”?

Call this number and we’ll offer you NPC support and end those indictments for good!

But seriously. This is a new kind of creeping fear that we’re being programmed without noticing. And that one day the mask will slip, and we’ll be revealed as pure algorithm outputs with a pulse.

Scroll any platform and you’ll see it: people violently curating their opinions, their tastes, their personalities like they’re dodging enemy fire. And in a way, they are. Because we live in a digital environment where everything ~ literally everything ~ is nudging us.

Platforms study our behaviour with forensic precision. Algorithms decide what we see before we see it. Behavioural science is built directly into the user interface. Every swipe, click, linger, and scroll is another data point in a system that’s designed to influence us more efficiently tomorrow.

And this isn’t just a Gen Z thing. It’s an everyone thing, the difference is that Gen Z grew up in it. They never really lived a pre-algorithm life. They were born inside the machine, so they’re hyper-conscious of how the machine works on them. Older generations feel the manipulation but can’t always articulate it; Gen Z can diagnose it. That's why we always hear this slightly lazy marketing narrative that “Gen Z hates ads.”

So when people talk about “marketing resistance”, it’s not just ad fatigue or cynicism. It’s self-preservation and identity protection.

This is where NPC anxiety shows up in the culture. The worst thing you can be today is “basic” and unoriginal. Someone pre-loaded with corporate-approved opinions and aesthetics. The algorithm has made us painfully aware of how copy-paste we are. One wrong trend adoption and boom: you’re exposed as an NPC. You’re not curating yourself; you’re being curated tf out of.

Which is why trends like “propaganda I’m not falling for” go viral. It’s essentially collective resistance performance art. It’s saying, “I see the puppet strings. I won’t dance”.

And this is also why so many of Gen Z want to be influencers or creators. We don’t frame it like this, but the psychological appeal of influencing is simple: If you’re an influencer, you’re the one exerting influence, not receiving it. You become the programmer, not the programmed. A creator of taste, culture, language, aesthetic. A node of power in a network designed to disempower individuals.

Influencers represent the fantasy of escaping NPC-hood. So when brands march into this environment and try to behave like humans with quippy comments, parasocial banter, “relatable” memes etc, they’re doing the exact thing people are trying to escape. They turn every last sliver of organic human joy into a brand touchpoint. They colonise the spaces where people are trying desperately to feel like themselves.

It doesn’t feel charming. It feels invasive. A corporation cosplaying as your bestie? Get out of my DMs. Get out of my jokes. Get out of the cultural petri dish we’re trying to grow some individuality in.

Marketing resistance didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the cultural immune system reacting to decades of manipulation dressed as connection. People don’t want brands to be their friends. They want brands to respect their agency. Hence the resistance to doing so.

It’s clear, transparent, and creatively confident. It doesn’t disguise selling as “vibes". It doesn’t LARP as a human. It doesn’t prey on insecurities or steal the aesthetics of emerging culture for clout.

It recognises that people today are terrified of losing themselves in the infinite scroll, and that respect is more persuasive than manipulation.

Because here’s the final plot twist:

If you treat your audience like NPCs, they will treat you like a scam. But if you treat them like humans with full agency? Well, why don’t you try and find out.

Because really, we can handle being sold sh*t we don’t need. But the line is well and truly drawn at being programmed, come on now.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The clip captures the sharp slap followed by intense huffing and puffing, and TikTok was quick to turn the audio into a comedic trend. Creators are using the sound to dramatize moments that instantly send their rage levels to 100. The slap represents the breaking point, and the “huffing & puffing” is the exaggerated “I’m about to lose it” reaction. Some great examples include:

Use this sound to exaggerate a moment that sends you into instant, over the top rage. The kind of situation that makes you ‘snap’ for just a split second because you have been holding it in. You can film your own dramatic reaction or keep it simple with a POV style text overlay. Think petty drama, everyday annoyances, or even stupid sibling arguments.

-Isabella Vlasich, Intern

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Hi Benny,

You need to create a content strategy rather than just posting randomly! Otherwise, your message will be totally muddled and your audience will be confused. So ask yourself who you're speaking to, what you want to say to them, and why you want to get that message across to them.

Once you know that, now you've got your core message and you should only create content in line with that. Don't worry about sounding repetitive, you want to become known for a consistent message, and the only way to do that is to keep posting about it!

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.