Ach, Mein Usernamen! Nintendo Declares War on Hitler.

In one of the many cases where peer involvement might have done a better job of curbing bad behavior, a corporation has stepped in to wag a finger at the collective juvenile antics of anyone who chooses a ‘taboo’ online handle. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, and it’s certainly not the first time that Nintendo—which became famous for its censorship practices when Mortal Kombat was ported to the Super Nintendo and gouts of blood were replaced with buckets of sweat no human should ever be able to produce—has decided that it can take the ‘mommy knows best’ role when it comes to squelching the potential mishandling of their product at the hands of those that make a big joke out of everything. You know the type: they tend to refer to ‘the lulz’ like a Christian refers to Jesus Christ.

Many of us might remember the schoolyard jesters that never seemed to take anything seriously, much less the slights they’d impart upon others in (ultimately) futile (but at the time rather lucrative) attempts to seem ‘hip’ and ‘with it,’ wearing political-incorrectness like a banner and insulting everyone around them as a means of displaying their blazing wit. Unfortunately, the sub-species of this particular archetype is thriving on the world wide web, and as a result of these and other types of gamers—the ones who swarm YouTube claiming that Iran is ‘full of dirty jews’ and call anyone who can articulate their point properly a ‘fag’—have urged Nintendo to put a hex on the name ‘Hitler’ when it comes to some of their high-profile properties.

On one hand, this is completely understandable—on the other, one would hope that aforementioned peer involvement might come into play. By assuming control over this issue, Nintendo is disabling those of us willing to give such pranksters, be their intent malicious or just plain stupid, the public shaming they desperately deserve. Furthermore, it sends a message to the community that we’re unable to police our own. Sure, someone could see the name ‘Hitler’ pop up and as a result be horribly offended,

but last I checked, most intelligent individuals are more than capable of spotting a troll when they see one, especially those that are web-savvy—we’re even better at kicking their proverbial teeth in. The flipside of this is that most of the individuals that make up this fast-growing global village are too concerned with themselves to do much of any policing in the first place. See ‘glass houses’ for more detail on that one.

So this leaves us at a bit of a conundrum: on one side, most people can’t be trusted to police their own unless there’s a paycheck involved, and on the other, it’d be nice to think that we COULD be trusted to police our own. Besides, after this it’s only a matter of time before snarkhounds decide to choose names like ‘Himmler’ and ‘Mengele’ for the sake of raising Nintendo’s hackles.