You might have read the headline and thought, “Wait, Nintendo? How has Nintendo, of all the developers, allowed a swear word to slip into one of their flagship games?” And you’d be right to doubt. After all, it would be like Link making an obscene gesture in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom‘ or a Pikmin insulting you every time you pick it up. There’s an explanation: it’s part of a mod that the Japanese company has been quick to remove from the entire internet.
Oh fuck
First, it’s important to explain that in ‘Super Mario Bros Wonder,’ the flowers you come across on your journey talk to you and say funny things or provide useful information. At first, they are quite entertaining, but, as it goes, they end up being more annoying than anything else. The thing is, in a very short time, they have become a new Nintendo icon, and fans have started making their own versions and memes.
One of them came from Contendo, a 19-year-old YouTuber who had modified the game so that one of the flowers said “F*** you!” After 851,300 views of his achievement on Twitter and another 128,000 on YouTube, Nintendo has decided to take action and remove the video that accompanied the tweet, “What a delightful talking flower in Super Mario Bros Wonder, I wonder what it will say to welcome me!” It’s also gone from YouTube, of course.
Nintendo is known for not taking things lightly. Memes are fine as long as they don’t harm their company, and they don’t allow or support mods in any way. Naturally, they weren’t going to let people believe, even for a moment, that an expletive was being said in their game. Contendo, however, has re-uploaded the video several times, hoping that Nintendo’s legal team never takes notice again. Some things are definitely worth fighting for.
