As anyone with a social media handle and more than a passing interest in video games knows, modern politicians are only too eager to co-opt gaming as a way to connect with more casual audiences. It's happening across the political spectrum, but the current US presidential administration has increased gaming-centric visibility by leaps and bounds. Including via silly generative AI nonsense, of course.
It's been less than a day since Pokemon Pokopia was highly anticipated (and pretty much-rated) launch. That's all it took for what was briefly a fun text generator meme to turn into something terrifying.
MIS (Make It Stop)
When Pixelframe created a text generator in the style of Pokopia's colorful bubbling font, dozens, maybe hundredsof us flocked to make our jokes. I myself did a couple of Gundam related things, specifically regarding the character of Banagher Links from the Unicorn series. Why? Because… well, it's a long story, an inside joke with my friend group, and it's really not worth boring you with. Suffice it to say, it was borderline fun for at least three people. Possibly four.
Naturally, White House social media staff smelled blood in the water. But this is like not even creative. It uses the infamous and famous infamous “MAGA” gameplay and puts it in front of Pokopia's title screen background. It does the bare minimum. It's just incredibly low stakes.
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I feel this.
But someone out there is going to see it and think to themselves, “Heh! The President of the United States likes this Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive video game that my mom bought me. That means he's a great president.” It will happen. It's happening as we speak. In fact, realtalk, there's at least one influencer out there right now talking about how “awesome” it is that our government loves Pokémon. I'm not going to fact check it. You know these people think reporters never fact-check anything, right, so I'm playing ball this time.
It's corny, it's boring, and it's kind of a complete fun-ruiner, but by all means, keep having fun with the generator. Hopefully someone out there will think of something brilliant, attach a compelling backstory, and compare the White House Twitter account six ways to the interim.
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So you say there is a chance.
