The first time I was called a larper, I was scrolling Instagram Reels in CoDa. Those of you who know me know that this is not surprising at all; in fact, the more surprising element of this story was that I’d made it out of my dorm to CoDa in the first place. The person who called me a larper was actually someone who was completely justified in their criticism. That’s because the person was me. I cannot find the actual text at the moment — it’s lost to limbo in my messaging history with my best friend — but I’m pretty sure it went something like:

lol i’m such a larper

And thus, my personal introduction to “larp culture” was complete. Not only did I hear people around me trading the word back and forth, but it became a staple of my own vocabulary.

For those of you who don’t know what larping is, the traditional dictionary definition goes something like this:

LARPing, or live-action role-playing, is a kind of game where players physically portray the characters they want to represent. Think of elves, wizards, vampires, or knights — figures you might find in “Dungeons and Dragons” or your favorite novel. Players can create their own persona and design their attire, then participate in events with other “characters.” Overall, live-action role-playing is an activity that incorporates creativity, deep investment and a strong and active community.

Say you were to pick one Stanford student at random and ask them for their definition. I can’t tell you exactly what they would say, but their definition would probably be vastly different. In fact, I’ve spoken to several people who didn’t know the actual definition of “larp” until months after they began using it in their daily vocabulary.

For those readers who haven’t yet come across the term, “larp” is commonly used to describe individuals whose public actions don’t necessarily match how they might act in private. In other words, a “larper” is someone pretending to be something they’re not.

Soon after I became accustomed to our school’s use of the word, I also began to see “larp signals” in those around me. From spotting classmates playing games during lecture to sleuthing out the telltale “vibe-coded” font on website homepages, I often smiled to myself, happy with the knowledge that I was not the only larper around.

But then, what does it mean to not be a larper?

A large portion of “larp accusations” stem from AI usage. Whether it’s for homework or personal projects, the use of AI to complete tasks formerly done by humans suggests that the user does not know how to manually complete these tasks. Even worse, this individual is pretending they do, if only to seem smarter than they really are.

These seem like wild accusations, so let’s look at a few examples:

This summer, social media was flooded with reels and posts about “larping” during summer jobs. Friends and peers shared common stories about running AI agents to complete menial tasks while they partook in some other, more entertaining matter. And I myself have often fallen into this hole, relying heavily on tools harnessing knowledge beyond my own to appear more qualified to superiors.

You’ll notice that AI was a common thread throughout those experiences. And I believe that these new tools are behind our tendency to call each other out for “larping.” As more people rely on AI to do their assignments, grade averages rise, and everyone is pushed to submit a higher quality of work. At times, though, it’s quite hard to tell whether a submission is the product of a student’s own effort or the result of a machine simply completing a task. It’s the same with personal projects and startups — it’s become much easier for people of all technical skill levels to break into different fields due to the advanced nature of the tools that they have access to. And because of this, it’s become harder to decipher who actually has the skills we’re looking for.

So, higher standards have led to increased judgment of one another. Now, when we see that the person next to us scored 100% on the last assignment, we wonder whether they used AI. If a classmate builds something new and successful, we ask how much of it was vibe-coded.

Now that we search for the larpers amid our student body and find that (shockingly) many of us do display symptoms, what should we do?

Currently, we seem bent on bringing each other down by pointing out flaws to make us feel better about ourselves. But I’ll ask again: what does it mean to not be a larper? What distinguishes us from the stereotype?

The answer is nothing. In order to not be a larper, we must expose our flaws to the rest of our community — a sacrifice that none of us are willing to make. In a society where half-hour interviews, resumes and brief interactions dictate much of our professional lives, we are forced to choose between success and authenticity. We are here because of our decision to conceal our weakness behind confidence, and because of that, we’ve inherently chosen to larp our respective ways to the future.

Yours truly,

a larper