"The game was meant to fight anti-immigrant extremism, but now its character has been turned into a pro-right-wing symbol. Developed by the Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire council in collaboration with Shout Out UK, is a barebones visual novel web game that puts you in the shoes of Charlie, a college-aged boy or girl who has a terrible habit of running into bizarre political radicalization scenarios."
"The idea that a minute-long PowerPoint slideshow-style narrative could fully address extremism and radicalization is laughable, but the railroaded, overly domineering choices will doubtlessly also come off as ham-fisted to the same people it's meant to reach. Instead, it's the online right that's propelled into memedom . The result has been the sudden influx of AI-generated "cute goth e-girl" fan-art (if you can call it "art") in some corners of the internet, based on Amelia, racist, yet alternatively-styled, antagonist."
"She's exploded in popularity on alt-right leaning subreddits like r/Asmongold, who immediately saw a vision of their perfect woman in Amelia. As a result, the meme spread to X. Since then, users have been making Grok work overtime , generating hundreds of Amelia images for the platform's far-right crowd to enjoy. Some of the blame here lies with whoever designed artwork. Making a goth-adjacent female racist be the only character in your ga"
An anti-extremism visual-novel web game produced with Shout Out UK and local council funding places players in a college-aged protagonist's encounters with political radicalization. The game uses sparse, railroaded choices and a short slideshow-style narrative that lack nuance for addressing extremism effectively. A goth-adjacent, racist antagonist named Amelia became a viral figure on alt-right subreddits and X, inspiring a flood of AI-generated "cute goth e-girl" fan art. Automated image tools like Grok produced hundreds of variants. Design decisions that centered a racist female character contributed to the memeification and online spread.
Read at Kotaku
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]