Nintendo's weird "This is Miyamoto" tweet is already a meme

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"This is Miyamoto. Donkey Kong is dead."

Shigeru Miyamoto
(Image credit: Nintendo)

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.

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:

(In case you're wondering, yes, Nintendo tweeted a picture of Miyamoto with an In-N-Out burger back in 2013.)

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.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick
Staff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.