Are you truly embodying your new aesthetic, or are you LARPing? This slang term has evolved quite a bit in recent years, and you might have seen people online using it in a way that doesn’t seem to fit with what you thought it meant. 

LARP stands for “live-action role-playing,” but in recent years, it’s become a term that describes someone who’s pretending to be something they’re not. Read on to learn more about both meanings and the evolution of this popular new insult—or life hack, depending on who you talk to.

The Original Meaning of LARP

The term LARP has its roots in the 1970s, which saw the birth of games like Dungeons & Dragons and other games that sometimes involved dressing up as characters and acting out various scenarios. The acronym LARP was first used in the 1990s, and it often appeared in game manuals alongside other terms like game master and NPC.

Over the years, its meaning has changed and expanded slightly. Yet the term has consistently referred to participants acting out specific characters and playing games as those characters, at least until the internet got its claws into it.

The Modern Slang Meaning of LARP

In recent years, the meaning of LARP has changed thanks to a trend that originated in gaming communities and internet forums, which has since spread to social media. Today, many social media users use the term to refer to anyone perceived as fake.

“Some people use the word larp in a more abstract sense of just pretending to be something, usually in a negative way,” one user wrote on Reddit. “You might see a civilian who dresses up in tactical gear with a bunch of guns described as ‘larping as a soldier.’” 

Another Redditor referenced a classic LARPer archetype—the influencer who creates a fake world for their online audience—citing “an IG influencer who does a staged shoot where it looks like she is on a private jet is ‘larping’ as someone who rides around on private jets” as a prime example of the concept.

Online, LARP is often used as an insulting way to describe someone who is straight-up lying, pretending to live a lifestyle they don’t have access to, or pretending to be more politically engaged online than they actually are in real life, among other inauthentic behaviors.

Yet even more recently, some people have added yet another side to this term. Some online creators have given the term a more positive spin by arguing that “larping” might actually be the key to manifesting your desires. “Live Action Role Playing (LARP) is the key to becoming who you seek to become,” one Instagram user wrote. “Embody the traits you wish to acquire, and you will.”

In a world where it’s easier than ever to pretend to be something you’re not thanks to technologies like AI and TikTok, it’s no surprise that “larping” has taken its place among the modern slang pantheon. Yet there’s also an argument to be made that people have always been “larping”—one only needs to explore the stories of some of the historical figures that lived double lives to see that. 

After all, according to Shakespeare, life may just be one great LARP—the Bard did famously write that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Is LARPing the nature of existence, or is life just one long journey back to one’s true self, as Carl Jung proposed? Now there’s a quandary to whip out the next time this term pops up on your social media feed; just do be prepared to be accused of LARPing as a philosopher.

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