LARPing

If you overhear your kids talking about someone they believe is larping, you need to know that what they’re doing is issuing an insult. The word Larp, L-A-R-P, is an acronym for live action role playing. In our social media saturated world where kids are posing, creating, fabricating, and curating a carefully crafted online image that’s really not who they are but who they think they need to be, they have engaged in larping. It’s a way to say that someone is being in authentic. A recent article from Rachel Hale in USA Today says going to a fitness class just for the photo-op is larping, or being a poser and fraud. It’s a way to say that someone is pretending and being performative. Because our kids are living through a stage of life where identity-formation is front and center, we need to help them answer the who am I question with the reality of who God has made them to be, rather than seeking to morph into who they believe the world and social media pressures them to be.