Uh-oh, Nintendo—should’ve picked Waluigi. Less than forty-eight hours after Banjo and Kazooie were confirmed for Smash Ultimate, Nintendo has made the decision to remove the sassy red bird from the upcoming DLC after several tweets from the now-locked @officialkazooie twitter account began trending under #CancelKazooie. While the original tweets were quickly deleted, one thing remains clear: Kazooie won’t be welcome in Italy any time soon.
“This sort of Italiaephobia may have been tolerated in 2007, but this is 2019,” tweeted out user @HowBoutWario37, formally @RareFan1998. “As a community, we made sure that random tripping ended with Brawl. Why should racism be any different? #cancelkazooie #bluebirdbeatsred #justiceforwaluigi.”
Various public figures have voiced their support for #CancelKazooie, notably Banjo of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts fame. “Kazooie and I were coworkers for many years, and it saddens me to learn that she held such hateful beliefs,” Banjo clarified in a Mumbo’s Mountain press conference yesterday. “Despite our frequent collaborations in the past, our relationship was never anything more than professional. If I was aware of the depth and scope of her political incorrectness, I never would have chosen to work with her. Also, the whole car thing? That was her idea. Blame her. Kazooie. Did you write that part down?”
However, the once-beloved breegull has her defenders: long-time Smash veteran and fellow bird Captain Falcon has condemned the #CancelKazooie movement for its pro-Italian bias, tweeting out, “Like it or not, Kazooie is way ahead of her Time!! Six percent of the population, twenty percent of the Crime!!” Falcon would later retract his support, claiming that his account had been compromised by some sort of mysterious rhyming antagonist. Unfortunately for him, several thousand Russian bots had already retweeted this pro-Kazooie endorsement, effectively ending his career.
Kazooie herself has been mostly absent from the public eye since the scandal broke, releasing a terse statement expressing her disappointment with current cultural trends, and insisting that her original tweets were taken out of context. “What I said was wrong, and I wouldn’t say it today,” tweeted the bird, fittingly. “And I didn’t. I said it ten years ago. So go ahead and hate me.”
The #CancelKazooie movement abruptly stopped after Twitter noticed that it could possibly impede the creation of a Banjo-Threeie.
