Why do people larp online? The psychology behind playing a part

Seven reasons people play a part online, each tied to a published study: the stage everyone performs on, trying on a self, the wish to be liked, the self someone hides, the internet that feels like a game, the costume that changes behavior, and what never taking it off costs.

Published: 25 October 2026

Why do people larp online? The short answer

Online, to larp is to play a part you do not actually have: a trader, a fan of a show you never watched, a soldier, a rich person, someone with a condition or a background that is not yours (the hobby and the slang). Threads asking why people do it are full of irritation. The research on self-presentation gives a calmer and more useful answer: there are several reasons, and they do not all lead to the same place.

1. Everyone performs. Managing the impression you make is ordinary social life; online it gets a bigger stage.
2. To try on a self. Experimenting with identities is common, especially when young, and usually driven by curiosity.
3. To be liked. Some play the part they think others want.
4. To hide. Some play a part because they dislike who they are.
5. Because the internet feels like a game. Distance and anonymity make a role easier to slip into.
6. Because the costume works. Acting a role can change how people behave, sometimes for the better.
7. For the bit, or for money. Some larp as an open joke; some because a staged identity sells something.

Everyone performs a little

The sociologist Erving Goffman described social life as theater in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, published in 1956 in Scotland and 1959 in the United States. People try to guide the impression others form of them by managing their setting, appearance and manner. There is a front region, where the performance happens, and a back region, where people prepare for a role or drop it. The setting includes the furniture and the stage props.

Seen that way, a profile is a front region with unusually good props, and the audience never sees backstage. Larping is not a different activity from ordinary self-presentation. It is the same activity with the link to the real person cut, or stretched until it breaks.

Trying on a self

A lot of larping is rehearsal. In 1986, the psychologists Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius described "possible selves": people's ideas of what they might become, would like to become and are afraid of becoming, which act as incentives for what people do next. Playing a role online is one way of testing one.

The data on young people backs this up. In a 2005 study by Patti Valkenburg, Alexander Schouten and Jochen Peter, 600 children and teenagers aged 9 to 18 answered a questionnaire in their classrooms. Half of those who chatted or used instant messaging had experimented with their identity online. The main motive was self-exploration, to see how others would react, followed by overcoming shyness and making it easier to form relationships.

Larping to be liked, or to hide

Not all pretending is exploration. In a 1996 study of adolescents, Susan Harter and colleagues asked why teenagers act in ways that are not the "real me", and the reason mattered more than the behavior:

A 2015 study of 261 young adults on Facebook by Minas Michikyan, Jessica Dennis and Kaveri Subrahmanyam points the same way. Most people presented their real self more than an ideal or false one. Those with a less coherent sense of self and lower self-esteem presented a false self more. The account that larps hardest is often the one with the least comfortable backstage.

Why the internet makes larping easy

In 2004 the psychologist John Suler described the "online disinhibition effect": people say and do things online they would not in person. Two of his six factors explain larping well. Dissociative anonymity makes the online self feel separate from the real one. Dissociative imagination makes the online world feel like a game with its own rules, a place where a character can be played without consequence. Suler added that disinhibition is not simply the "true self" escaping, but a shift to a different part of the self.

The costume also acts back on the wearer. In experiments at Stanford, Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson gave people avatars in virtual reality. Those with more attractive avatars moved closer to a stranger and disclosed more about themselves; those with taller avatars negotiated more confidently. They called it the Proteus effect: people conform to the role their appearance suggests.

Can larping help? The Batman effect

Sometimes the role does real work. In a 2017 study by Rachel White and colleagues, 180 children aged four and six were asked to stick with a boring task while an attractive video game sat within reach. Children who pretended to be an exemplar character, such as Batman, worked longest, ahead of those who thought about themselves in the third person, who in turn beat those who simply thought about themselves.

This is the honest core of "larp it till you make it": a role rehearsed in private can change behavior. It works as rehearsal, not as display, and the evidence for the display version is thin (when acting the part helps, and when it is a lie).

What never taking the costume off costs

The largest study here cuts against the larp. Erica Bailey, Sandra Matz, Wu Youyou and Sheena Iyengar compared what 10,560 Facebook users said about their own personality with what their likes and status updates suggested. The closer the two, meaning the more authentic the self-expression, the higher the users' life satisfaction. A preregistered experiment then found that posting authentically improved mood within the same person. A role can be a good place to visit; the research suggests it is a tiring place to live.

Why "larp" became an insult

The hobby works because the roles are agreed: everyone at a LARP knows the knight is a player in a costume. Calling someone a larper online says the agreement is missing. They kept the costume on and expect everyone else to play along. That is why the word stings more than "poser" for some people, and why it is also used as a joke about oneself, as in larping as a morning person (larping vs posing, grifting and cosplay).

A whole account built on a role has its own name, and its own tells (what a larp account is). Its cousin, the life filmed as if it were a movie, is main character energy.

When the role is money

The last reason on the list is the one that costs other people. Wealth earns status only when it is seen, so larping rich is the cheapest status signal there is (why people flex money online). A rented car, a borrowed watch and, cheapest of all, a screen with a balance on it. When that screen becomes evidence for a course or an investment, the role has turned into a pitch.

The same screen has honest uses, in skits, explainers and parodies of exactly this culture, as long as the audience is told what it is. A larp wallet, also called a crypto wallet app simulator, is an app that shows a believable crypto wallet screen built from the balances you type in, for videos, skits, pitch decks and demos. It holds no funds and touches no blockchain.

My Larp Wallet is one such app, which we make. Label it as a mockup on screen: our terms forbid presenting it as a real balance to obtain money, an investment or anyone's trust.

Sources

• Wikipedia, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Erving Goffman), 2026
• Markus and Nurius, Possible selves, American Psychologist 41(9), 1986
• Valkenburg, Schouten and Peter, Adolescents' identity experiments on the internet, New Media & Society 7(3), 2005
• Harter, Marold, Whitesell and Cobbs, A model of the effects of perceived parent and peer support on adolescent false self behavior, Child Development 67(2), 1996
• Michikyan, Dennis and Subrahmanyam, Can You Guess Who I Am? Real, Ideal, and False Self-Presentation on Facebook Among Emerging Adults, Emerging Adulthood 3(1), 2015
• Suler, The online disinhibition effect, CyberPsychology & Behavior 7(3), 2004
• Yee and Bailenson, The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior, Human Communication Research 33(3), 2007
• White, Prager, Schaefer, Kross, Duckworth and Carlson, The "Batman Effect": Improving Perseverance in Young Children, Child Development 88(5), 2017
• Bailey, Matz, Youyou and Iyengar, Authentic self-expression on social media is associated with greater subjective well-being, Nature Communications 11, 2020

Questions

Why do people larp online?

For several reasons at once. Everyone manages the impression they make, and the internet gives that performance a stage, props and an audience of strangers. Studies of young people find identity experiments online are common and mostly driven by curiosity about how others react; pretending to please others or to hide a disliked self is rarer and goes with lower well-being. Some people larp for a joke, and some because a staged identity sells something.

Why are people using larp as an insult?

Because it names a specific failure: playing a part without the agreement that makes role-play a game. In the hobby, everyone knows the roles are roles. Calling someone a larper says they kept the costume on and expect everyone else to play along, whether the role is a soldier, a trader, a fan or a rich person.

Is a larper just a poser?

Close, but not identical. A poser claims to belong to a group or a scene; a larper acts out a role, often with props, a vocabulary and a story. In everyday slang the two overlap so much that many people use them interchangeably, and both become serious only when the role is used to get money or trust.

Is larping bad for you?

Not in itself. In a 1996 study of adolescents, those who acted unlike their real selves to experiment with roles reported the highest self-worth and the most knowledge of their true selves, while those who did it because they devalued who they were reported the worst outcomes. A 2020 study of more than 10,000 Facebook users found that more authentic self-expression went with greater life satisfaction.

Why do people larp so much now?

The word got more common, which makes the behavior look more common. Larp spread as slang through X and TikTok in 2026, so posts that would once have been called fake or try-hard are now called larping. The behavior itself, presenting an edited self to an audience, is as old as the study of social life.