Nintendo icon and In-N-Out burger enthusiast Shigeru Miyamoto recently got hold of the Nintendo's Twitter password and made himself into a meme.
Miyamoto's intent was simply to announce the delay of Chris Pratt's Mario movie to April 2023, but the weird and mildly foreboding way he phrased the announcement is what got online people talking. And when we say "online people talking" in 2022, we of course mean they're making memes.
Nintendo's tweet is fairly typical for the brand but for the opening line, which reads: "This is Miyamoto" - as if we wouldn't trust an announcement from Nintendo without knowing the legendary Mario maker himself wrote it.
This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Chris-san, my partner at Illumination on the Super Mario Bros. film, we decided to move the global release to Spring 2023–April 28 in Japan and April 7 in North America. My deepest apologies but I promise it will be well worth the wait.April 26, 2022
I think part of what makes the tweet so funny is that the opening line seems like it should portend a much more serious situation than the silly Mario movie being delayed. Not to make light of the delay, but Miyamoto announcing himself so dryly almost gave me a heart attack as a million possibilities swirled through my head before I read the rest of the tweet. Is he retiring? Is Elon Musk buying Nintendo? etc. etc.
Regardless, the tweet is perfect meme material. It's quirky, doesn't need any context, and it's easily modifiable. Here are some of our favorites here at GR:
This is Miyamoto. Donkey Kong is dead. pic.twitter.com/9fyigGbU1EApril 26, 2022
This is Miyamoto. I was not lying when I said I wanted In-N-Out. My deepest apologies but I promise it will be well worth the wait. pic.twitter.com/d33NORfJKvApril 26, 2022
(In case you're wondering, yes, Nintendo tweeted a picture of Miyamoto with an In-N-Out burger back in 2013.)
This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Sakurai-san, we decided to remove all characters of the Super Mario franchise from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. My deepest apologies but I promise it had to be done.April 26, 2022
This is Miyamoto. We shot LuigiApril 26, 2022
This is Miyamoto. I have decided to eat some mini-tacos for dinner tonight. My deepest apologies but I promise it will be well worth the wait.April 26, 2022
This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Chris-san, my partner at Illumination on the Super Mario Bros. film, we decided to delete the movie. It is too scary. We had to turn on the lights to watch it and Chris hid under the covers. No file of the film exists. My deepest apologies.April 26, 2022
Sure, these are pretty basic, text-based memes, but we got a good laugh out of them. Plus, the meme is still in its infancy; we'll likely be seeing more and more elaborate examples crop up on social media for months, if not years, to come.
ICYMI: Miyamoto doesn't like Navi from Ocarina of Time either.
