Somebody mentioned the "NPC" behavior on Tik Tok (as distinct from mocking people with no visible skepticism as "NPC" ) and I was puzzled (as were they). To my luck, someone had compiled a variety of such videos.
As with many facets of internet culture, I defer to Short Fat Otaku for research (since he is willing to have a Tik Tok account and I refuse to).
As best as I can tell, it started with a very creative girl who was able to mimic the pre-scripted reactions of actual computer game non-player characters amazingly well. For a culture fond of the quirks of computer games and the animations, that is impressive and creative despite seemingly repetitive or odd behavior. When an AI companion is given a gift, the animations are usually identical and some of the initial humor was in a human mimicking the absurdity of the computer behavior.
If this sounds strange, remember that one definition of humor is "mimicking the behavior of a crazy person". Machines are now anthropomorphized enough that they are fodder for comedy for a younger generation. For comparison, older generations might imitate or mock a very predictable public transit message or the predictable answers of a philosopher (such as a sleeping student answer to Milton Friedman's quiz question as "I don't know what the question is but the answer is to expand the money supply" ).
There is another layer. As more human emotion is poured into machines and simulations of human beings (such as AI non-player character companions), some humans will try to imitate them for attention. While the initial comparison is for the flash of novelty that comes with the recognizable quirk, others may seek to obtain some of the attention unrealistic fantasies have.
As humans spend more time with machines, some humans will try to act like machines and some humans will treat others as machines. 100 years ago, that observation was about manual labor and the inflexible schedules set by managers. Now it is about human emotions and biology. It has been speculated that the "pause button" analogy for puberty-blockers is actually believed by people since such an analogy makes more sense to people more used to digital avatars than the messiness of real biology.
Where boys spend their time, some girls will follow with the hopes of attracting attention. In the past, that may have been trivial such as when village girls would watch the fishermen return with the catch and attract their attention (and my brother married one such girl), that will work differently in digital culture. Since so much male attention is on pornography, some girls will imitate that (possibly to get romantic attention).
They are going to get attention though perhaps not the good kind.
Good people recognize the difference between fantasy and reality and attempting to imitate a fantasy to find a good person might be unwise but may still hope to catch the painfully naive. While many otherwise good people use pornography to relieve urges or lonliness, their selection criteria for human interaction is hopefully less superficial. When socialization is dominated by superficial imitation of fantasies, healthier people will flee (if they have any place to congregate to is another question).
In many respects, "NPC" Tik Toks are just the final effort to mimic the bland predictability of machines by people who want some human connection and they find it in machines, not people. It is cargo-cult attempts to reach a human connection and we must not be blind it its absurdity simply because some are successful. After all, even the old cargo cult islanders now have tourism that brings in “cargo” that the actual mechanics of their worship did not.
Just as some males try to understand female attraction in the form of crass displays of money and muscles, it seems some females seek to understand male attraction in the form of sex or video games. Neither shows the spark of creativity or problem solving needed for a truly fulfilling relationship but how many models for that do they have?
Superficiality and exposure to machines will bring the superficial imitation of machines.