About

Romanceable NPC, Quest Giver NPC, Final Boss refers to a social media challenge that involves posting three images of yourself, usually without taking new photographs, as three non-playable video game characters: An NPC you can romance, an NPC that gives the player a quest and the final boss NPC. Starting in February 2022 and initially popularized among cosplayers, the format regained virality on social media in March 2023.

Origin

On February 26th, 2021, Twitter^[1] user @keelyclove tweeted, "im not a final boss im not a romanceable npc im simply an annoying quest giver." The tweet (shown below) gained over 530 likes on the site in one year.

On February 28th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user and cosplayer @faetrouble tweeted three photographs of herself in cosplay, offering others to join in (shown below). The tweet, which gained 20 quote tweets and 280 likes, mentioned that the challenge started elsewhere. The exact origin could not be discovered.

Spread

In early March 2022, the trend saw spread on Twitter, primarily among cosplayers. For example, on March 2nd, 2022, Twitter^[3] user @sherlock_hulmes posted three cosplay photographs of himself as the NPCs that gained over 20 retweets and 700 likes in one year (shown below, left). Later that day, Twitter^[4] user @ClaireMax posted three images of herself that received over 120 retweets and 3,100 likes in one year (shown below, right).

The format then regained popularity on Twitter in early March 2023, with the challenge updated to have a condition not to take any new pictures, and the trend spreading primarily through quote tweets. For example, on March 2nd, 2023, Twitter^[5] user @KP11Studios posted three photographs as a part of the challenge, with the post gaining over 130 likes in four days (shown below, left). On March 5th, Twitter^[6] user @Freezze posted three images of The Office character Michael Scott, with the post gaining over 20 retweets and 230 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References