“Real Life NPCs” — Woman Freaked out by “Creepy” Smiling People Barely Moving in Car

Spend enough time on social media browsing through influencers' videos or visit Los Angeles, and you'll see a lot of inauthentic smiles.

The ones a TikToker named Stephanie (@step_onmy_appletaco) encountered in real life, freaked her out, even from a distance.

So much so that she decided to document them in a viral clip that has accrued over 26.7 million views on the popular social media application.

Stephanie begins by recording two people sitting in a parked red crossover SUV. The individuals in the car are both wearing dark-tinted sunglasses. In a caption for her post, she explains why their behavior was so unnerving.

Honestly, it sounds like something straight out of the movie Smile and if the sequel to the film hadn't already been released, I personally would've just chalked it up to a marketing stunt associated with the film. Because video virality will often trump traditional marketing methods any day of the week.

Stephanie writes in her caption: "Spooky season got me. These two were sitting in the drive-thru in that scary pose for at least 10 min. They were grinning and staring and barely moving. I know I'm not crazy."

She provided further context in her video with a text overlay that described their behavior more. According to Stephanie, the duo in the car had a "default" mirthless smile pose that they would return to whenever it was broken with movement.

"I saw these two and they freaked me out. They would barely move and if they did move, they'd go right back to the scary pose."

She also provided some footage of the creepy behavior of the folks waiting in the drive-thru line to further delineate why she was so disturbed.

The individuals in the 37-second clip do seem to be acting like NPCs out of a video game. Their behavior is punctuated by some chuckles and adjustments of their lips, however, their faces do seem to "reset" back to their smiling state.

If you're a high-ranking conspiracy theorist, you might argue that this is further evidence we are all living in a simulation. Or maybe there's a mind control apparatus that has already grown much too powerful for our species to fight against, and these individuals are some of the first to succumb to its might.

However, several users who replied to Stephanie's video had some theories of their own, and they offered up some pragmatic explanations.

Namely, the polite "waiting" face someone has when they're watching something.

Several commenters thought that the couple was simply viewing a video on the man's phone. Because they both seem to be looking downward in the clip, they argued that they were listening intently to what was being said in the video, and responded with laughs or smiles every so often.

"I think they were watching something on his phone. You just can’t tell cuz of the glasses and he has his phone down low," one person suggested.

Another replied: "Looks like they are watching a video together."

Stephanie conceded that this thought had crossed her mind as well, but she was unconvinced seeing as they would "snap back" right into the smiling pose they exhibited several times throughout the clip.

"I thought that too but I couldn’t understand why they would fall right back into that pose instead of shifting positions."

However, someone else thought that the couple was on a FaceTime call, and were just engaging in proper video calling etiquette. "I feel like they're on FaceTime with someone. And the other person's just telling a story and they're smiling while listening and responding a little every once in a while."

Others thought that Stephanie's video was just additional evidence that no one is safe from being recorded whenever they go out in public. God forbid they smile without someone thinking they're a creepy automaton. "D--- can't even smile without the fear of someone recording me."

Also, other folks thought that Stephanie's video may have just been a promotion for the Smile 2 flick as well.

If you're wondering why certain types of smiles freak us out more than others, look no further than the Uncanny Valley effect.

It's rooted in the idea that something appears to be human, or in this case, friendly, but signs of insincerity trigger our fight or flight response.

Psychology Today wrote about this phenomenon in anticipation of Halloween and cited several other examples of creepy smiles, like the ubiquitous Jack-o-Lantern, or Conrad Veidt from The Man Who Smiles who was surgically altered to have a permanent smile emblazoned on his countenance.

Do you think the smiling folks in Stephanie's video are creepy?