White Home Goes Full Gamer, Tries and Fails to Pump Meme Inventory

On Friday, Microsoft introduced {that a} new Halo online game could be coming to Sony’s PlayStation, a longtime rival to Microsoft’s Xbox. That prompted online game retailer GameStop to subject a press launch joking concerning the console wars being over. However that’s when issues began to get bizarre, as President Donald Trump’s group jumped in and sparked a back-and-forth of memes and chatter from the federal authorities that helps illustrate how a lot the net tradition of the White Home has modified.

It started with a jokey press launch issued by GameStop, formatted to resemble an official authorities proclamation.

A Assertion from GameStop pic.twitter.com/GraJAT69aI

— GameStop (@gamestop) October 25, 2025

From there, the X account Fast Response 47 quote-tweeted the press launch with “NUMBER 9: President Trump presides over the tip of the 20-year Console Wars,” a reference to Trump’s false claims that he’s settled over half a dozen wars.

Fast Response 47 is an official White Home account that serves as the net assault canine of the administration, disseminating propaganda to counter messaging that the Trump regime dislikes. Although, in equity, that’s just about each authorities social media account today.

NUMBER 9: President Trump presides over the tip of the 20-year Console Wars 🕊️ https://t.co/TpeLhZt89Y

— Fast Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 26, 2025

GameStop adopted up with its personal quote-tweet, together with a picture of Trump shaking palms with Grasp Chief, the principle character of the sport.

https://t.co/jI0ZrstLgz pic.twitter.com/VS32cV0RG7

— GameStop (@gamestop) October 27, 2025

The principle X account for the White Home additionally obtained in on the jokes, sharing an AI-generated picture of Trump as Grasp Chief with out his helmet, together with the caption “Energy to the Gamers.”

Energy to the Gamers https://t.co/GqNu0qdgmw pic.twitter.com/4Hw6G7i7aW

— The White Home (@WhiteHouse) October 27, 2025

GameStop quote-tweeted the White Home, this time with not simply a picture of Trump as Grasp Chief, however with Vice President JD Vance because the character Cortana, an clever AI from the sport collection. It’s not only a simple picture of Vance, although. It’s a type of bloated Vance memes the place he’s made to have lengthy curly hair and a beard.

https://t.co/8DRFpgbFv5 pic.twitter.com/wWvOYrwSUR

— GameStop (@gamestop) October 27, 2025

The CEO of GameStop, Ryan Cohen, is a big fan of the president. After the 2024 presidential election, he tweeted “Trump has now gained 3 elections in a row,” in a reference to the false declare that Trump gained the 2020 election towards Joe Biden.

By Monday, the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety had created its personal meme picture, which took issues even additional. The company tweeted a manipulated picture from Halo together with the caption “Ending this struggle.” However the textual content on the picture was much more excessive. It learn, “Destroy the Flood,” a reference to the first alien life kinds fought by the great guys in Halo. 

Ending this struggle. pic.twitter.com/6Ezq9NUqMq

— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) October 27, 2025

The Flood is a parasitic alien species that may infect different hosts. And it’s not arduous to see what DHS is implying by the decision to destroy the flood. DHS even features a name to hitch ICE, one of many companies that’s deployed masked goons to U.S. streets in an effort to purge immigrants, particularly non-white individuals.

404 Media reporter Matthew Gault talked concerning the weird posts on Jordan Uhl’s podcast The Insurgents, noting that evaluating an out-group to bugs or to monsters is what fascists do.

“That is about as fascist as you get, proper?” mentioned Gault. “It’s instantly evaluating individuals coming into the nation on the lookout for a greater life with monsters which are right here to assimilate and destroy you. That is straight out of the fascism textbook.”

You may all the time depend on DHS to take issues much more excessive on-line. There’s a major thriller round who really runs the DHS account, however they’re clearly tuned in with the far-right and extremist meme tradition. Simply final week, DHS posted a dog whistle for Nazis with a video of the anti-ICE protests in Portland, Oregon, that included MGMT’s 2018 track “Little Darkish Age.” The track was slowed down in a manner that grew to become extraordinarily common with white supremacists within the early 2020s.

Border Patrol additionally posted a video in latest months that solely gained widespread consideration two weeks in the past, that includes antisemitic slurs. DHS, which oversees Border Patrol, pushed back hard when Gizmodo requested concerning the incidents, an perspective that’s one other hallmark of right-wing grievance tradition on-line. DHS didn’t reply to emailed questions on Tuesday about its Halo content material.

The Halo references are all a part of a development now the place the Trump regime makes use of video video games and animation-adjacent movies to distort the which means of the unique popular culture references. Final month, DHS posted a video on its social media channels that used Pokémon characters and music to “catch ’em all.” The factor they have been catching, in fact, was human beings.

GameStop inventory surged in premarket buying and selling on Monday however has since fallen again to the downward trajectory that it’s been on in latest weeks. The inventory is down 1% right this moment and down 11% over the previous month, in response to The Street. GameStop’s inventory is down 24% over the previous yr.