“Larping until its life,” a saying rising in popularity among those chronically online. Larping is a new internet trend involving the possession of luxury watches, cars and items, or rather, pretending despite a lack of.
Traditionally, the term larping has been an abbreviation for “Live Action Role Playing,” a form of acting, specifically with fantasy roleplaying. Think of Dungeons and Dragons, or a renaissance faire. As larping has traditionally been about acting, the new trend is nothing different, only instead of acting out fantasy worlds, larpers today act out the life of luxury.
The popular trend normally involves cars. Participants find expensive or rare automobiles and start larping with them. For those involved, this means acting like they own the car, and not just in real life. Larpers take pictures and videos of themselves flexing the car like they own it for social media. Larping is all about portraying an image to the world of success in order to attract attention or fame. This created the saying, “larp until its life,” the mentality that acting successful will bring success.
One Green Hope student familiar with the trend, Ethan Nadal (‘26), broke it down. “For me, I think it’s when you find ways to be what you want to be without being that person,” he stated, furthering the definition of faking success to achieve success. Nadal also says larping can be serious or a joke, “On the internet, I would say it’s more of a joke. People will assume [the car] is not yours.” Many people are quick to point out that a nice car, like a lamborghini, is a rental, even though online, a larper may claim it’s their car.
Nadal’s favorite way to larp is to “find connections to people with nice cars.” In Nadal’s own case, he knew some people with nice cars, like a Porsche or a Lamborghini, that were willing to let him larp with their cars on social media and act like they were his.
To close out, Ethan Nadal talked about a real upside of larping, to start a business. “You can use larp to your own advantage, setting up a business and larping its success until it becomes successful.” As many now call it, “larping until its life.”
While larping may be a popular internet trend right now, many believe it to be a real path to success. Acting like the person they want to be, in order to become successful. While faking a life of success could raise some moral questions, larping is still a fun joke to play on the internet. Taking it seriously or not, acting out a life of luxury can bring some good fun.
