The Anthropawlogist

Today, while getting my daily morning dose of internet drama on YouTube, I came across a new term… nay, a new phenomenon that I had never heard of before: larptubing.

Larptubing is a new style of YouTube content creation whereby a creator persistently performs the identity of another real creator as the entire premise of their channel.

A larptuber is therefore a creator who engages in larptubing.

Let’s do some etymology first. The term borrows from LARP (Live Action Role-Playing), a form of participatory role-playing in which participants physically embody fictional or historical characters in real-world spaces.

The internet had previously already broadened its meaning beyond the hobby. According to the urban dictionary, to accuse someone of “larping” means that they are pretending to be someone they are not.

Apparently, the trend of larptubing blew up with Larpiplier, a parody of Markiplier (YouTuber turned horror movie director), after which many others stepped up, parodying the likes of MrBeast and Penguinz0 (my oshi). It would appear that the internet initially saw these as nothing more than silly, harmless cosplays… until Technolarp.

Technolarp, Technoblade and Technodad

Unlike the earlier examples, Technolarp is a parody of Technoblade, a beloved YouTuber who passed away in 2022. Technolarp not only took up the identity of Technoblade but also played with Technoblade’s real friends, who called him Techno… causing discomfort for Technoblade’s father, aka Technodad, who had remained silent for some time but has since publicly expressed his uneasiness regarding the situation. Technolarp had previously interpreted Technodad’s silence as a form of silent approval (silent consent? silent blessing?), to continue pretending to be his deceased son.

Although Technolarp claims that all money earned is donated, critics argue that this misses the point entirely. They take issue not with where the money goes, but with the act of impersonating someone’s deceased son and a beloved member of the community in order to gain attention, influence, and an audience using the digital identity that Technoblade himself had cultivated.

On the other hand, supporters argue that what Technolarp is doing is fundamentally no different from cosplay or Elvis and MJ impersonators. I personally caution this comparison. While both involve copying a famous person’s style, it seems to me that Technolarp has gone a step further by occupying Technoblade’s social identity and social role that many in the community feel still belongs to Technoblade, despite his death.

Anthropology and Ethics

Just throwing concepts around here but I wonder if we can frame this through the lens of liminality. Technoblade arguably exists in a liminal state. His physical self has perished, but his social and digital self continues to exist in collective memory. His videos are still online, his fanbase remains active, and his influence continues to shape the Minecraft community. Technolarp seizes this liminal space, steps into it, and attempts to take advantage of that social identity.

Gordon drew on Becker’s concept of symbolic immortality in his discussion of ikigai, suggesting that it helps people negotiate the fear of death by fostering a sense of enduring legacy. Can it still be considered symbolic immortality when one’s digital “immortal self” can be remotely overridden, modified, or even taken over? To me, this just introduces another layer of existential fear, extending the concerns articulated by Terror Management Theory.

This also raises larger questions. In this digital age, when does the self truly die? Who gets to own a person’s identity after their death? These questions seem increasingly relevant, extending far beyond the circle of YouTube considering the fact that Social media companies are already experimenting with AI systems that allow deceased users to continue interacting with friends and family. Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s CTO filed a patent for a “language model [that] may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased” (Bradley, 2026).

The Technolarp controversy may simply be an early example of a much broader ethical dilemma that we have yet to resolve. From an ethical point of view, how does consent work in a case like this?

• Technoblade himself, of course, can no longer consent.
• Technodad has not given explicit consent, though he also did not explicitly reject it.
• At least part of the community has, in a sense, “given consent” by supporting Technolarp and treating him almost as if he was the reincarnation of Technoblade.

Questions that I have been asking myself:

• How do communities construct ethical boundaries around digital personhood?
• Does a deceased individual’s digital identity/ self-deserve moral and ethical protection?

hmmmm…….

References

Ayalon, L., & Tesch-Römer, C. (2018). Introduction to the section: Ageism—Concept and origins. In L. Ayalon & C. Tesch-Römer (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on ageism (pp. 1–10). Springer.

Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. Free Press.

Bradley, S. (2026, February 17). Death isn’t the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting from beyond the grave. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-granted-patent-for-ai-llm-bot-dead-paused-accounts-2026-2

Mathews, G. (1996). What makes life worth living? How Japanese and Americans make sense of their worlds. University of California Press.

Disclaimer* This is written based on early information while the incident is still developing. Available sources may be incomplete, inaccurate, or reflect bias. The views expressed here are intended solely for personal reflection and should not be regarded as factual reporting or academic analysis.