Memes / Animal Crossing: New Horizons

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We'll be making a water landing, but that's OK because this is a seaplane.

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• A running gag up to the announcement of Animal Crossing for the Switch was to post pictures of various Animal Crossing merchandise and games arranged as a summoning circle in hopes that an announcement would be made in regards to a future title.
• The ability to sell (literal) weeds in New Horizons quickly became compared to selling the other kind of weed, with the fact that you're selling them to Timmy and Tommy — two characters who are canonically children — inspiring a number of "hey kids, want some weed?" jokes.
  • This actually had gotten ACNH trading groups in Facebook in trouble, so they've been having to resort to not outright mentioning "weeds".
  • Naturally, some players made jokes about how you could sell 42 clumps of weeds for 420 bells. ^Explanation Weeds sell for 10 bells each, so 42 of them conveniently works out to be 420.
• Animalcraft/Minecrossing: After the gameplay of New Horizons was revealed in more detail (including Item Crafting and the ability to sculpt the island's landscape), quite a few people noticed the similarities between the game and Minecraft. In a similar vein, there's 'when's the Redstone update?' post-launch, with many jokingly suggesting adding Redstone/Redstone-equivalent to the game to see what crazy automated contraptions people could set up in Animal Crossing.
• New Horizons got a lot of crossover art with, of all possible games, Doom Eternal due to sharing the same release date after their respective delays. Even the developers of both respective games embraced the meme, with both sides sharing their appreciation for the community crossing the two franchises together, especially this post from the official DOOM Twitter account in response to the addition of the Doom Slayer Mii costume in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Most fan art tends to show either Isabelle cheerfully slaying demons alongside the Slayer (or Isabelle as the Slayer), or just hanging out with the Slayer for some fishing or bug catching, just to name a few. The Chalkeaters even made a song about it.
  • Another similar joke is characters from various other media going to a game store on release day and buying the opposite game from what you'd expect, like a dark, serious character buying New Horizons and a harmless, cutesy character buying DOOM, the primary examples of this being the characters of both of the aforementioned games buying the opposite ones.
• Isabelle the alcoholic. ^Explanation  When Isabelle was revealed in the New Horizons Direct in February 2020, she had a glass of brown liquid on her desk with ice cubes. Then, this image revealed Isabelle explaining that she likes whiskey◊. The fandom was quick to run with the idea of Isabelle being so overrun with trying to be helpful that she drinks herself into oblivion.
• Raymond memes:
  • Raymond's name combined with his Ensemble Dark Horse status led people to make several Everybody Loves Raymond jokes.
  • Off of the above joke, "Everybody Hates Raymond" has also begun to spring up due to the Hype Backlash surrounding his character and level of popularity.
  • Raymond tends to get compared to many other people known for wearing suits, such as David Byrne in the music video for Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime", David Bowie throughout the 1980's (particularly the "pop Bowie" period spanning from Let's Dance to Never Let Me Down), Neil Cicierega (helped by the fact that they share similar features such as their fashion style and Nerd Glasses, Raymond's heterochromatic eyes evokes Neil's mashup album cover Mouth Moods, and Neil also made a song called "Everybody Loves Raymond"), and Adam Conover from Adam Ruins Everything. Such comparisons tend to be particularly popular among people who enjoy Raymond as a character but are exhausted by his more fanatic and horny followings.
    • Appropriately enough, Adam Conover himself took notice, and tweeted a response where he wrote Raymond to act like the character he played on Adam Ruins Everything.
  • Maid Raymond ^Explanation A somewhat more... unique... trend surrounding Raymond, stemming from this Twitter post, involves dressing him up in the maid dress clothing item, often played for either Attractive Bent-Gender appeal or comedy appeal (sometimes both).
  • The Raymond trade market. ^Explanation While villager trading has been around since the first game and first gained infamy with New Leaf, Raymond's massive popularity took it to previously unseen levels, with players on sites like Nookazon putting him up for millions of bells and hundreds of Nook Miles Tickets, or even a thousand real dollars. Later developments took things to even further extremes, with people charging for the chance to so much as look at Raymond in-game, as well as attempting to pawn off his fleas for ludicrous amounts of money. Fans outside of the trade market tend to make fun of the lengths people will go for a "cat twink" with no other distinctions from the other Smug villagers, with said later developments only amplifying these jokes.
  • Twink cat ^Explanation A common nickname and descriptor for Raymond.
  • Raymond Togami^Explanation Raymond is often compared to Byakuya Togami from the Danganronpa series, most likely because they both wear glasses and suits, the fact that Raymond's house is themed after an office and thus fits with Byakuya being the future heir of a powerful corporation and that the smug personality type does fit well with Byakuya's Smug Snake personality. After this line associated to Byakuya went viral, the comparisons to Raymond skyrocketed
  • "Raymond in boxes" ^Explanation "In boxes" is the shorthand players use for a villager whose house is filled with cardboard boxes, meaning that they're leaving the next day and can be persuaded to move to another town. Anyone saying that Raymond is in boxes leads to a massive amount of offers from his fanbase, so some players like to post the phrase alongside situations that are definitely not Raymond in boxes (such as a player dressed like Raymond, or saying that Raymond and his boxes are in the wine cellar). Others depict the phrase literally, e.g. showing an image of Raymond being packed in a box and shipped to Abu Dhabi.
  • Free Raymond ^Explanation Just to show how desperate many people are for Raymond, a meme that began around May of 2020 simply consists of saying you're giving away Raymond for free on the New Horizons trading Discord (even if you don't have him or don't even play the game at all) and watching as the entire server spams your DMs asking for their free cat.
  • "I have been following your tweets for the past two days, and have come to the conclusion you do not deserve to have Raymond on your island."^Explanation One of the more infamous moments to come out of the Raymond fandom—a Twitter PM◊ from someone declaring that the other person had been mistreating Raymond, that this mistreatment was a source of anxiety due to him being a "comfort character", and demanding they hand him over. The whole thing didn't take long to become a copypasta.
• Nook's status as a mob boss in the community has been memeified so much, TPAIN MADE A SONG ABOUT IT. Take a listen. It's actually really good.
• No Froggy Chair? Fuck this game! ^Explanation  The game was datamined a few days before launch and it was revealed that the Froggy chair (which gained memetic status in February 2020) would not appear in the base game. Because the Froggy chair is considered Serious Business, many fans jokingly intend to cancel their pre-orders and opt for either Doom Eternal, or future games such as Persona 5 Royal or Final Fantasy VII Remake. The Froggy chair would eventually be added in the November 2021 update.
  • The Return of the King ^Explanation  A common response on posts reacting to the Froggy chair appearing in the Nintendo Direct for the November 2021 update. The most common variant is a screenshot of the chair in the Direct followed by the title card of the film by the same name.
• Prerelease, many declared their intent to name their island "Pen".
• Islands flooded with donations ^Explanation The earliest you can get a museum open on your island is four days after starting; Tom Nook takes 5 donations on the first day, then gives you a tent to place for Blathers, which will be pitched by the second day. When the tent is set, Blathers only accepts 15 donations before upgrading his tent to a museum, which takes the duration of the third day. As a result of being unable to donate most of the fish, bugs, and fossils they've obtained, players started stockpiling all of their donations outside, typically right next to the pending-completion museum, to the detriment of the island's navigability, ultimately leading to the Museum receiving a behemoth of donations once it finally opened.
• Due to both games featuring characters living on an island overseen by an animal mascot who makes regularly scheduled announcements, many comparisons to Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair have been made. Even more amusing is that one of the keywords you can use as your passport title is "Ultimate"^note Given when you obtain the Golden Watering Can., so you too can be an Ultimate!
• In New Horizons, the spawn seasons of tarantulas (in the Northern Hemisphere) and scorpions (in the Southern Hemisphere) were changed to be from November to April rather than the normal summer months, meaning they were common during the game's launch. Fans like to joke about how surprisingly aggressive they are, especially with the discovery of one possible Nook Miles island that is swarming with them. As their spawn periods are now changed to encompass the entire year in total, divided between a tarantula half and a scorpion half (which one is which depends on the hemisphere), the aggressive arachnids are also an easy and consistent money-maker much like the palm tree beetles from New Leaf, leading to drawings and screencaps of players selling giant hairy spiders to Timmy and Tommy in bulk.
• Many players would take a picture next to Gulliver laying on the beach while wielding an axe, to make it look like they just murdered him.
  • Similarly, many players made memes about mistaking his communicator for a gun due to the angle he pulls it out at.
• Recreating any iconic scene from any other franchise unrelated to Animal Crossing within the game.
• Fishing memes:
  • Can we go back to sea bass? ^Explanation In response to the large amounts of eggs in the water during the Bunny Day event (prior to 1.1.4), people have◊ made◊ jokes◊ about how sea bass, black bass, and other common fish aren't so bad in hindsight.
  • Owning Snapping Turtles as pets ^Explanation Unlike nearly every other fish and bug that's available to catch, the Snapping Turtle isn't in any sort of tank or container. It just remains in its spot like any other inventory item. It can also be interacted with like other furniture, causing it to hiss. This has led to it being the pet of choice for players, treating it as a dog or cat, which works since dogs and cats are your neighbors.
  • Ye ^Explanation A player took a screenshot after catching a sunfish, but was a little slow and the text box where the Player Character says "Yes!" had already appeared. However, only the "Ye" had been typed out, and since the sunfish is so massive that it completely covers the player when they hold it, the image ended looking like the sunfish itself was saying "Ye".
• "Welcome to the Velvet Room." ^Explanation As he appears to you in your dream on the first night, many were quick to make connections between K.K. Slider and Igor.
• Players have compared Zipper T. Bunny to Robbie the Rabbit from the Silent Hill franchise and Bonnie from Five Nights at Freddy's. It's probably not helped by Zipper's Uncanny Valley appearance similar to the former.
• Please end the conversation. ^Explanation Whenever another player joins over Wi-Fi, there is a brief scene where the character can be seen flying over the island and disembarking from the airport. If a player is currently talking to a town NPC at the time, this not only delays the scene but holds everyone else hostage, as they are unable to move while this is going on. Given the increased player count online, this can easily snowball into large portions of time where players can't do anything, either unintentionally (like if a bunch of players are flooding the town to sell turnips at a high price) or intentionally. As such, the phrase asking the player to end the conversation has become infamous among the online Animal Crossing players.
  • Wuh-oh! Looks like we're getting interference... Hang on... Someone not put their NookPhone into airplane mode again? ^Explanation Quote from Orville when trying to enter or leave someone's island while someone on that island is in a conversation or is on one of the menus and doesn't end it fast enough.
• Acquiring the ironwood kitchenette. ^Explanation The ironwood kitchenette is one of the most coveted DIY furniture pieces because it looks very good, provides table space, and is part of one of the game's best furniture sets. Furthermore, similar kitchen furniture (open-frame kitchen, system kitchen, kitchen island) is extremely expensive. The recipe for it is available in one of the early-game DIY packs, but two of its ingredients, the cutting board and the ironwood dresser, are DIY furniture whose recipes are difficult to obtain, so of course, its reputation became rather infamous among the fanbase.
• stalnks◊/tornps◊ ^Explanation A variant of the "stonks" meme that's based specifically around the Stalk Market in New Horizons, which thanks to a renewed emphasis on online multiplayer and the greater presence of social media since the release of New Leaf has become a far more lucrative source of in-game income for players, who've built entire networks around advertising high turnip prices (which under optimal circumstances can result in profits within the range of millions of bells).
• K.K. Slider Album Redraws^Explanation A trend among the game's fanart community features artists redrawing real album covers, replacing anyone depicted on them— be they the actual artists, paid models, etc.— with K.K. Slider (and friends, should there be more than one person on the cover), much like how K.K.'s singles in-game handle their cover art.
• After rumors emerged claiming that performing certain actions relevant to Leif following the Nature Day update would brick the game and/or corrupt save data — rumors that were easily debunked as false — internet denizens both inside and outside of the New Horizons fanbase began posting fake PSAs claiming that certain actions (ranging from mundane to bizarrely left-field) would result in similarly disastrous consequences (e.g. "do NOT go onto TV Tropes and click the 'Edit' button; doing so will RUIN YOUR LIFE!!!"). Some variants of the meme also use a screencap◊ of a crash log from one of the original tweets◊, with said screencap having been sourced from a much older post detailing a failed attempt at modding a Switch.
• Rodney abuse. ^Explanation Due to certain game mechanics (the player is required to move in their first campsite villager, and said villager is guaranteed to be drawn from the tiny Smug pool), a lot of players get the gonk-ish hamster Rodney on their island as opposed to popular picks like Raymond and Julian. This turned Rodney into a minor Memetic Loser, with viral posts of players making fun of him or trying to make him leave, including a subreddit dedicated to Rodney hate; others have come to his defense instead.
• Dom's sad face. ^Explanation While not as popular as some of the other new villagers, Dom the jock sheep gets a lot of fanart because of his adorably pained sad expression◊ (which tends to show up when he's crafting). It's often connected to the existing "no talk me im angy" meme that involves cute animals looking adorably upset.
• Judy's shocked face. ^Explanation Judy, the new snooty bear cub villager, makes this face when she's surprised, shocked etc. It was only natural that it would attract attention.
• "... but that's OK because this is a seaplane."^Explanation Whenever you're flying to another island or back to your own, Wilbur will comment "We'll be making a water landing, but that's OK because this is a seaplane." The ubiquity of the comment led many to make jokes replacing the first half with another (usually wildly inappropriate or Black Comedy based) comment.
• Bill Wibbly ^Explanation Tumblr user "elderly scrolls" commented◊ on how ridiculous villager hate can get, describing a hypothetical situation in which they hear someone bash a nonexistent villager named "Bill Wibbly", saying he killed their family and burnt their crops, only for them to look the character up and find a harmless-looking pink teddy bear in a yellow "heart" sweater. The character has become a major in-joke, with some hoping that he'll eventually be added to the game as a villager, completing the circle.
• 30 Iron Nuggets ^Explanation An infamously grind-y early-game quest. Opening Nook's Cranny requires 30 of each kind of wood, plus 30 iron nuggets. While 30 of each wood is not a problem to obtain, obtaining 30 iron nuggets is far harder. Iron nuggets only drop from either hitting rocks or from blue balloon presents. At that point of the game, some rocks may be on cliffs and thus not accessible to the player without acquiring a ladder early from someone else. Some technique is required to ensure that rocks drop the maximum 8 possible resources, and each drop can be stone, clay, an iron nugget, or (rarely) a gold nugget. Without the use of multiple Nook Miles Tickets to access more rocks on Mystery Islands, the player is very unlikely to single-handedly complete this quest within a day. Many new players thus go to trading groups to ask for a stack of 30 iron nuggets.
• Hmmm...There really isn't any news to speak of today...^Explanation As the main presenter of the Island Announcements, Isabelle will barely announce anything outside of seasonal events, shooting star occurrences, villager move-ins or outs, or whenever someone's at the campsite. Most of the time Isabelle will splurge out useless information like talking about her horoscope or talking about her TV habits. It's even more annoying if a player is performing the campsite method, and Isabelle doesn't announce a campsite visitor; she just wants to talk about that cooking show she watched yesterday.
  • Err...Oh dear. I guess that doesn't really qualify as "news," does it? ^Explanation Usually the end of one of Isabelle's announcements whenever she rambles about something irrelevant.
  • Is there really no news for me to share today? ^Explanation Additionally on Wednesday, Isabelle has a chance to say this during her Island Announcements, really mocking the fact that she has really nothing to say.
• Making the perfect snowboy ^Explanation Players who were in the Southern Hemisphere in New Horizons were exposed to the snowboy mechanic much earlier than Northern Hemisphere players. That is, of course, making the perfect snowboy. A lot of players expressed frustration over how to roll up the snowboy into its proper proportions, with some even rolling up a snowboy where its head was bigger than its body. Failing to make a perfect snowboy (aside from the first one) also has a hefty penalty - the player loses the chance to obtain a DIY recipe from the Ice set and four large snowflakes over four days (which can only be obtained from perfect snowboys and are required material to craft any Ice set item). It didn't help that the snowboy would criticize the player for screwing up hard, providing a lot of guilt and agony.
  • It's my birthday today! Cake sounds yummy, but...no candles, please.^Explanation One of the snowboy's quotes. Many took this as an opportunity to use burning objects like a tiki torch to surround the snowboy, especially if that snowboy isn't perfect.
• Diving memes:
  • After the announcement of Free Summer Update (Wave 1) for New Horizons, many fans, especially those that have their games set to the Southern Hemisphere (where it's winter instead of summer), jokingly made memes of them diving in freezing, cold temperatures, including one video edit combining a clip of the villager diving with an old viral video of a man trying and comically failing to dive through a frozen pool. Meanwhile, the Northern Hemisphere's summer is also known as "shark season," where numerous great whites and other sharks swim right up to the shore; the potential risks of leaping into a shark frenzy did not go unnoticed.
  • Owning Horseshoe Crabs as pets. ^Explanation Like the snapping turtle before it, horseshoe crabs do not exhibit any tank like the other sea creatures and, when placed, is just the creature itself (this also applies to spider crabs and seaweed). Similar to how interacting with the snapping turtle causes it to hiss, interacting with the horseshoe crab causes it to turn on its back just like a dog would. As of result, the horseshoe crab has given the snapping turtle a run for its money.
  • The fact that the Giant Isopod returns from New Leaf led to a resurgence of old memes about the creature, including "real isopod hours" and recreations of a viral pic◊ featuring three real-life Giant Isopods with a bag of Doritos.
  • Following the release of the update, many players found that they could still use their NookPhones even while swimming. This has gotten a lot of people to comment on the NookPhone being incredibly waterproof.
• One clothing item that received notable attention is the Workout Top, which is notable in being one of the shortest Top items in the game by length, only reaching the upper torso. Because of its very short length, in addition to the fact that villagers are unable to wear any Bottom items, it is practically the closest method of seeing "nude" villagers. It doesn't help that said item is a somewhat common "return gift" from daily gifting in the warmer seasons. As a result, many fans have made their villagers wear this shirt because of their rather suggestive appearances while wearing it. Double points if the villager in question has a rather Gonk-ish design. The Tube Top is also used for jokes like this, perhaps even moreso because it stops below the shoulders.
• Where is Brewster?!^Explanation Just like many other special NPCs from previous games, Brewster and his cafe, The Roost, were absent from New Horizons until November 2021. This combined with his popularity and the fact that datamine suggested that he would be added sometime in the future lead to people constantly asking for the return of Brewster and pointing out his absence.
  • Brewster is here.^Explanation Brewster and The Roost were added to the game on November 2021, with many people celebrating that they could finally answer the aforementioned question.
• Following New Horizons' nomination in the 2020 Game Awards for Game of the Year (among others), a lot of people have noticed just how out of place New Horizons looked compared to the other, more gritty/dark nominees like Doom Eternal, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, Hades, and The Last of Us Part II.
• Cute space buns ^Explanation While the addition of inclusive hairstyles was welcomed across the community, this post of someone using one of these hairstyles to create space buns◊ has led to many debates about whether it was appropriating Black hairstyles or not.
• "Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?" ^Explanation  With the inclusion of the Aurora Wall, a wallpaper introduced in the winter update and that can be obtained during the Winter Solstice (December 1st to December 31st in the Northern Hemisphere and June 7th to July 6th in the Southern Hemisphere), a lot of players choose to hang it on the walls of rooms they have turned into kitchens in reference to the famous Steamed Hams skit from The Simpsons. In other words, you can now have the Aurora Borealis localized entirely within your kitchen!
• Because of previous games hinting the falling-out of Tom Nook and Redd as business partners in what the former refers to as "the incident", many new fans started portraying them as bitter exes who may or may not still be interested in each other.
• Ankha Zone^Explanation An NSFW animation of Ankha by Rule 34 artist ZONE-sama became a fandom meme in September 2021, especially on TikTok, where the song used in the video ("Camel by Camel" by Sandy Marton) became popular. Jokes include censoring the video in creative ways, baiting the viewer with a promised "uncensored" version before cutting to something comedic and SFW, and reacting to images of Ankha in horror. Meanwhile, "Camel by Camel" started gaining several SFW covers and parodies, such as this metal cover and this otamatone cover. There also exists a SFW version showing Ankha dancing to "Living On The Ceiling" by Blancmange, which was quickly picked up by TikTok users who re-enacted the dance in real life. Come the November 2021 update, things got a new layer as we get a new K.K. Slider song called "K.K. Break", which not only sounds somewhat similar to "Camel by Camel", but also has a hologram of Ankha dancing on the cover. The potential acknowledgement of the meme created lots of reactions, and even if the song was finalized beforehand, many agreed that its spotlighting in the 2.0 Direct presentation was the result of someone who knew what they were doing.
• "YOU CAN FINALLY KILL THE SEA BASS!"^Explanation When the final update for New Horizons introducing cooking, with fish being ingredients, many fans were overjoyed by the fact the Sea Bass was needed for several recipes, since that meant they could kill and cook them as revenge for their infamous status as a Goddamned Bat in the series.
• When it was revealed that the Happy Home Paradise DLC would allow players to make two villagers roommates after meeting certain criteria, a lot of jokes referencing to the "Oh my God, they were roommates" vine were made.
• Harry's house. ^Explanation  In Happy Home Paradise Harry is considered one of the funnest houses to design, as he asks for a sloppy room. Common themes of his house include abundant, overflowing garbage (Bonus points if the steamy polish effect is added to the garbage bags to give them a Visible Odor), fast food strewn all over the place, brown bottles, either implying he's an alcoholic or... worse..., lots of the sloppy set, scattered papers and books... and occasionally some NSFW implications.
  • Lionel's Toilet House ^Explanation  Yet another popular Happy Home Paradise house request which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin; Lionel, a smug lion villager, requests a house filled with toilets. A giant public restroom if you will.
• Common catch quote parodies^Explanation Among fans, a number of fish and sea creatures (e.g. suckerfish, anemones, and especially sea bass) are viewed as Goddamn Bats for how common they are, how little money they sell for, and how their shadow sizes are similar (if not identical) to those of more valuable creatures. Consequently, the catch quotes for these common critters are common subjects for jokes that exaggeratedly depict them as The Dreaded among players.

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Please end the conversation.

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