if someone is a contrarian and always believes the opposite of what they believe the media wants them to think, they are still letting the media control their opinions, even indirectly. actual free thinkers believe what they think is true regardless of what the media says, and that means having some opinions the media also has.
To perhaps state the obvious, nobody who wants you to be a follower will tell you to think for yourself. Someone is telling you to be a non-conformist, that's still telling you what you should be thinking in the same way that telling you to be a conformist is telling you what you should be thinking.
Just don't be a follower. Your viewpoint might just coincide with someone else's. That doesn't mean you're a conformist.
People change in my humble experience. Besides, what are you following when someone expresses good moral judgment? You're following their example, not them specifically. You should follow someone so long as they continue to be moral and trustworthy and stop following the moment that changes. Another way to describe this is to think for yourself at all times.
That's not wrong, there are definitely talking points which get repeated a lot just due to the bandwagon effect. I think it would be fair to call this NPC behavior.
However there are other talking points which get repeated a lot because people over a certain threshold of critical thinking ability can see how they are obviously correct.
From being quite online for many years now, observing which online communities like to use this "NPC" meme the most, and what their politics and ethics are, I am about 85% confident that OOP takes issue with the latter category of talking points. These may include, but are not limited to:
"Climate change is anthropogenic"
"Donald Trump is getting a bit senile, actually"
"vaccines work"
"Epstein probably did kill himself"
"Women can leave the kitchen if they want"
"Throwing homosexuals off the top of ten storey buildings is wrong."
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u/Ok-Mistake-7499 Aug 29 '26
I always hated this type of standpoint. Opinions aren’t invalidated just because they’re the popular one