A set of viral videos circulating online are revealing the political leanings of your favorite video game characters. The internet loves the weird, meta Smash Bros. gags.
Produced by Art House Politics, a group which creates memes and other media content about left-wing politics, the videos hilariously describe how Bowser is a fascist (obviously), Yoshi is a Marxist, and Wario is a libertarian.
The group first’s video, which analyzes the beliefs of characters from Mario, has garnered more than 10,000 retweets since being posted on Twitter in April of last year.
The political alignments of Mario characters pic.twitter.com/pcQttdiw4v
— Art House Politics (@ArtHousePtx) April 4, 2018
Art House Politics returned this week with the latest in the installment: a political breakdown of all the characters from Super Smash Bros.
“Someone on Twitter said Link would be a survivalist, prepping for calamity,” the video begins. “Samus would be a second-wave, feminist Democrat.”
Other revelations include Pikachu’s adherence to vegan environmentalism and Luigi’s neoliberal beliefs and fear of Russia. And in case you didn’t know, Falco is a massive Elon Musk fan with investments in Bitcoin.
Political alignments of Smash Bros characters. (This is the last one!)
— Art House Politics (@ArtHousePtx) May 23, 2018
Also Hyrule Temple is the hill.
Influencers with exquisite taste and perfect politics, send your work to arthousepolitics@gmail.com to apply as a contributor! pic.twitter.com/YSVjRTc5ZU
In the team’s final videos on Smash Bros. Ultimate, we learn even more. As stated by the video’s narrator, Pokémon‘s Mewtwo is a “Postmodernist who judges you for your ideological trappings.”
Political alignments of SMASH ULTIMATE (2/2) pic.twitter.com/fRxR02p8D5
— Art House Politics (@ArtHousePtx) January 31, 2019
When questioned by the Daily Dot, an individual behind the Art House Politics’ Twitter account explained how the idea came to be: “Of course they’re just fun videos—I think it took off because people have emotional attachments to Nintendo characters, and we understand politics through social categories, and people love to talk about whether the connections I make click with them or not,” they said. “We’re not subtle about trying to take gaming content from the clutches of the right wing, but we’ll get some comments relating to the ones I’m trying to make fun of. It’s scary when I say Bowser’s a fascist and then someone goes ‘I’m Bowser!’”
The group says it likely won’t produce any more video game-related parodies as it plans to shift its focus to more informative long-form content.
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