Simulation glitch: Woman appears ‘stuck in time’ in viral TikTok

Footage of an unknown woman appearing to glitch out has gone viral on TikTok, having amassed over 580,000 likes and 7,115 comments by July 22.

The video was named "NPC caught lacking," (NPC meaning Non-Playable Character) and features a woman becoming frozen. The woman’s legs, arms, and even hair pause at an awkward angle, giving the impression that she was turned to stone. The woman is said to have remained that way for a full minute.

@unknown1575489 NPC caught lacking #npc#malfunction ♬ original sound - uknown

The video has TikTok users baffled and questioning reality, with many commenting things like “We’re in a simulation” or “I actually think the matrix is real”.

Non-Playable Character, simulations and questioning reality

The term Non-Playable Character developed from computer games, once describing background characters that interact with the player. However, the term has evolved past video games and has now become a popular cultural term and even a trend where people can be paid thousands of dollars to act like a faux human, according to The Guardian.

In 2003, Nick Bostrom published a philosophy paper declaring that the famous Greek 4th century philosopher Plato had been right when he said that humans do not perceive the real world, according to Forbes. The paper went on to argue that people live in a simulation.

“If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence,” Bostrom wrote in his paper. “While the world we see is in some sense ‘real,’ it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.”

The ideology by Bostrom has since spread, with the help of social media and movies like The Truman Show and The Matrix.