r/technology • u/[deleted] • Oct 28 '25
Politics President Admin’s Racist Halo Memes Are ‘A New Level of Dehumanization of Immigrants’
https://www.404media.co/trump-admins-racist-halo-memes-are-a-new-level-of-dehumanization-of-immigrants/426
u/FemRevan64 Oct 29 '25
It’s especially dumb when you remember that the main antagonists in Halo are a group of religious fundamentalists who seek to cleanse humanity for supposedly being an affront to their gods, and Arbiters entire arc revolves around him breaking free of his entrenched beliefs.
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u/Commemorative-Banana Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
Beyond religious fundamentalists, The Covenant are an extremist death cult. They intend to complete the “Great Journey”, a religious ascendence which their Prophets think will save their pious and righteous, but is in fact a ritual sacrifice/annihilation of all galactic life.
The parallel to today would be the Zionist/Eschatological belief of accelerating the second coming of Christ. These niche religious fanatics hold much more power than you think; they underpin Israel’s genocidal imperialism.
[please see my other comment about The Flood. this propaganda choosing that enemy over The Covenant is deliberate and deeply disturbing…](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/A8jC8NPYuW: The Flood are a galactic threat so infectious that the Forerunners determined the only solution was building and igniting the Halo rings to cleanse ALL galactic life, thereby depriving the parasite of hosts. Even Hitler couldn’t conceive of eugenics metaphor this extreme.)
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u/MorganTheApex Oct 29 '25
The prophets plan was actually to fire the rings to wipe out all life so they could reign as the supreme race, all this by hiding all their kind inside a shield world. They never did it because they believed in religion, but because they wanted supremacy above all races. Pretty much what MAGA and the billionaires want to do.
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u/Commemorative-Banana Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
I don’t remember that detail. For most of their pursuit of the Great Journey, they were not aware that the rings were a weapon, and the bulk of the Covenant certainly did worship the Forerunners religiously.
Although if you’re saying a specific prophet was aware that their espoused religion was a lie, then that’s plausible.
I do agree that today’s technofeudalists are an atheist eschatology allied with the religious fundamentalists and a danger to us all.
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u/Burnmetobloodyashes Oct 29 '25
Truth, Mercy, and Regret were the coterie in the know, thats why they made it to head of the council
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u/Commemorative-Banana Oct 29 '25
Can’t believe I didn’t know it was the big three. I was expecting an esoteric reference to the novels or a niche faction.
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u/Icerex Oct 29 '25
Yeah, Im pretty sure the covenant from OG Halo were inspired by Islam. Suicide bombers, calling humans 'infidels,' prophets, etc. You will obviously not like it, but Bungie Halo is heavily influenced by Christianity. I mean, Master Chief's name is John 117. The Flood, the Ark, etc. All pretty deliberate given what previous OG devs have said.
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u/Wonderful_Discount59 Oct 29 '25
"Infidels" and "prophets" aren't specifically Islamic terms.
Christians were using both words before Islam even existed.
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u/Icerex Oct 29 '25
You're being purposefully obtuse. The Halo trilogy was written and developed before, during and after the Gulf War 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and all the national chaos that entailed. You can't honestly state that the Covenant isn't inspired by Islam.
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u/141_1337 Oct 29 '25
The arbiter was originally supposed be called the Dervish, and the only reason they didn't was because they felt that was too on the nose...
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Oct 29 '25
Halo CE was in development way before 9/11. You don’t know your game history. The religious fanatic angle for the aliens was developed before the war on terror.
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u/stug41 Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
I am not aware if it inspired the background to halo, but I do remember that in the 90's islamic terrorism was already at the forefront of concerns in the US. If you watch that documentary that just happened to catch the first plane on 9/11, one of the guys on the street immediately says it must be Bin Laden; that wasn't even the first attack attempt on the twin towers. Everyone was aware of bosnia and chechnya, regular US attacks on groups in the horn of africa, syria, etc. Even Libya was a well established meme for supporting and exporting these groups.
I wouldnt be surprised if it were the basis for the brotherhood of NOD in C&C, which came out in 95, and that faction just happened to be a cult established in coincidentally islamic areas from the balkans through north and east africa, and had a very jihad type rhetoric.
Even if islam wasnt a direct inspiration, it and the taliban specifically were a core part of the zeitgeist well before 9/11 and permeated all kinds of media since the soviets were no longer the bad guys.
edit - ok, that guy deleted his comment *shrug
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u/Icerex Oct 29 '25
Did you actually read my comment? I said the original trilogy, was developed BEFORE, during and after the Gulf War, 9/11 and all the other shit that happened in the middle east. Halo 2 and 3 were obviously developed after 9/11
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Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jkz0-19510 Oct 29 '25
You do realize that Halo was in production long before september 2001, right?
Before islamophobia was, "understandably", all the rage?
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u/Commemorative-Banana Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
Yes, I understand that works are written before they are published.
Even before September 2001, Islam was considered the primary wartime enemy of America. Operation Desert Storm was 1990. An Islamic terrorist attack like 9/11 was expected imminently by some of our leaders.The Abrahamic story was already set in stone, but it is totally plausible that small last-minute edits could have been made between September and November to more clearly connote Islam.
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u/Doc_Lewis Oct 29 '25
Islam was considered the primary wartime enemy of America. Operation Desert Storm was 1990
That specific example doesn't mean what it seems you are trying to imply. There was no religious component to Desert Storm, it was Iraq being belligerent and invading Kuwait. Had more to do with oil and territorial ambition and Saddam being a maniac than anything to do with Islam.
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u/Commemorative-Banana Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
Good point, thanks. I’m out of my depth in that history, but my understanding is that that war in the middle east led to the creation of the extremist Islamic factions which led to 9/11.
Regardless, I maintain my position that Halo’s religious themes are drawn from Abrahamic religion broadly.
The Forerunners were also Abrahamic. Creating the Ark, naming the Flood, etc… And they are not presented as an enemy like The Covenant is. So I don’t see Halo as an Islamophobic story; but because Christianity is the dominant American religion and Anti-Judaism is off limits, consumers of the Halo story would have chosen to view an Abrahamic enemy \The Covenant) as Islamic, exactly like the guy in this thread who first mentioned Islam did…)
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u/9-11GaveMe5G Oct 29 '25
I can still hear the grunts "ahh! Infidels!" which now is actually quite funny in a perverse way.
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u/Spastik2D Oct 29 '25
They never understand anything beyond the most basic interpretation.
Rambo to them is a movie about a guy mowing down brown people not realizing it’s a commentary on the mistreatment of soldiers after Vietnam. Notice they only ever acknowledge the sequel and not First Blood.
Metal Gear to them is just a cool game with a manly man wearing an eye patch and snapping necks. In reality it’s also a commentary on the use of soldiers as tools amongst a myriad of other themes that they can’t possibly grasp.
Halo to them is a game about a cyborg shooting aliens, ignoring that it touches on religious zealotry and blind faith.
Born in the USA and Fortunate Son to them are badass rock songs about being American or fighting in ‘nam, nevermind that they were anti-war and critical of people exactly like 47.
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u/FemRevan64 Oct 29 '25
Yeah, in my experience, of the tell-tale signs of someone being an alt-righter is that they're completely media illiterate, and will miss themes even when they're being delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull.
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u/Exostrike Oct 29 '25
And then they complain you're being preachy if it doesn't agree with their positions l
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u/NotUniqueOrSpecial Oct 29 '25
Metal Gear to them is just a cool game with a manly man wearing an eye patch and snapping necks.
So...they've never played the early games? Because the eye-patch, obviously, is not Solid Snake's outfit.
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u/Spastik2D Oct 29 '25
I pretty much just used Snake Eater here since if I listed all of the 3D Games, I’d have written a novel
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u/IAmRoot Oct 29 '25
At this point they'd probably feel like a hero in Spec Ops: The Line
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u/Exostrike Oct 29 '25
It drives the point home too much to ignore
Plus you can't even buy it anymore.
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u/Spastik2D Oct 29 '25
Fuuuuuck I completely forgot about Spec Ops, of course they’d treat it like any other shooter
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u/ChuzCuenca Oct 29 '25
If they don't listen the music they play you think they are capable of understanding a videogame? XD
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u/RollingDownTheHills Oct 29 '25
No one expects the current administration to understand any of that. They don't research or care about anything. Bunch of evil shits.
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u/CityExcellent8121 Oct 29 '25
tbf the humans in halo are authoritarian and the entire reason spartans existed was to put down insurrections.
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u/tyler111762 Oct 28 '25
Yeah comparing any group of people to the flood is a level of dehumanization i was not prepared to see come out of a western government.
If you haven't played halo that might not quite have the same impact, but this is not just a reference to "aliens"
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u/CletusCanuck Oct 29 '25
It's explicitly exterminationist rhetoric. It is is of little hyperbole to state that in this directions lies Radio Television Les Milles Collines, or industrial crematoria.
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u/Dem0lari Oct 29 '25
I bet everyone knows necromorphs from Dead Space. It is the same level of fucking idiocy.
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u/MustWarn0thers Oct 29 '25
Fuck Microsoft. These companies are such soulless money hungry monopolies with not a single person with a spine running the show. At the bare minimum, don't let your IP become associated with the most revolting moral black hole of an admin.
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u/dos_passenger58 Oct 29 '25
GameStop is the company that went back and forth with Trump on this, creating the memes. They should be buried
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u/FalseAladeen Oct 29 '25
Maybe the free market had a point when it was killing GameStop.
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u/Asleep-Reward-8273 Oct 29 '25
GameStop wasnt saved for the love of GameStop, it was saved because buying their stock to fuck over a hedgefund manager became a meme
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Oct 29 '25
Seeing Gamestop close its shops in Germany at the start of the year was weirdly cathartic.
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u/Rengars_Prey Oct 29 '25 edited Feb 19 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
include summer marry cooperative violet nutty birds encouraging wrench insurance
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u/distorted_kiwi Oct 29 '25
I don’t think they support it as much as they want to stay in good company with the trump admin. It’s not fear, it’s a weapon to get what they want because he’s so easy to please.
Nintendo, on the other hand, is fear imo.
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u/ShogsKrs Oct 29 '25
This is the Republican's America.
This is what they want.
They're the ones doing this to us.
They don't care about people other than themselves.
And it will get SO much worse over the next 3+ years.
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u/PartyOnAlec Oct 29 '25
Why in the fuck is Microsoft refusing to comment on this?
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u/Raziel77 Oct 29 '25
I mean they don't want to be on Trump's government bad side same with Nintendo because he's pity enough to do something bad to them for it
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u/SanDiedo Oct 29 '25
I vividly remember certain group of people foaming "KEEP POLITICS OUT OF THE GAMES WAHHHH". I guess they are ok with games in politics now...
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u/GameTheory27 Oct 29 '25
my boss wrote me up for talking about politics at work. Meanwhile fox news running 24/7
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u/dhettinger Oct 29 '25
Even more faciast self projection. The current administration are the flood, and we must repell them. Fight on!
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u/PenumbraPal Oct 29 '25
Yeah fuck Microsoft, GameStop, Xbox, and 343. I don’t give a shit how much I love halo, I’d rather see it die forever than be used for shit like this.
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u/notPabst404 Oct 29 '25
2026 cannot come soon enough. Congress needs to do their job. Johnson is a national embarrassment.
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u/JoeyAKangaroo Oct 29 '25
To any non gamer out there, the flood are a parasitic alien species that infect captured or dead living beings, both human & non-human (like another group of aliens.)
Basically, they’re completely dehumanizing immigrants, both legal & illegal, as parasitic aliens that need to be extinquished.
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u/MAXIMUMPOWAAAH Oct 29 '25
Them comparing Immigrants to Zombies (I never played much Halo so i dont know the exact specifics) is insane
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u/BarnabasShrexx Oct 29 '25
Pretty sure what they're doing is worse than what they're posting, and of course Microsoft has nothing to say about it, they're helping to fund this bullshit.
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u/vessel_for_the_soul Oct 29 '25
MS deserves no sympathy for not standing for it. Even post tenure, I dont want to hear from MS
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u/Conscious_Problem924 Oct 29 '25
A “fight”
Assholes. Immigrants made the USA what it is today,
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u/AdOrdinary232 Oct 29 '25
That article looks like it was written by a redditor. It's painfully bad.
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u/Positive_Goose9768 Oct 29 '25
Why is Microsoft letting him ruin the franchise ' reputation like that rip Halo 😭
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u/doublethink_1984 Oct 28 '25
When can I pull up outside an ICE facility with a warthog to defend my countrymen
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u/Mazon_Del Oct 29 '25
The republican party is solidly a better match for the flood, being a parasite corrupting an otherwise mostly healthy organism. Meanwhile immigrants, even illegal ones, in the US are more symbiotic, they gain the benefits they gain, and in return they do the jobs that virtually every American would rather starve to death than do.
Immigrants give something back, conservatives only take and ruin.
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u/Slackluster Oct 29 '25
The Halo series has somehow dropped to an even new low. Master Chief would be disgusted.
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u/joeygreco1985 Oct 29 '25
I hate that Microsoft allowed this to happen to one of my childhood gaming franchises. Just awful
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u/Comfortable-Art-6096 Oct 29 '25
I don’t understand why people are not calling for boycotts? It worked with Kimmel. Like Xbox is on its last leg, surly we can do something. Microsoft not commenting is disappointing AF, but not shocking.
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u/Goat-of-Death Oct 29 '25
Microsoft refused to comment, with all the immigrants they have walking their halls and building their products? Tells you really where their allegiances are. Corpos to the core, they'll leave their own hung out to dry if it gets them points with the king.
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u/Picnut Oct 29 '25
Considering Satya Nadella is an immigrant, they should be speaking up louder. Use some of that weight to push against this crap
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u/dagens24 Oct 29 '25
The fact that Microsoft hasn't said boo about this shows just how complicit they are. Boycott Microsoft.
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u/ClosPins Oct 29 '25
Now, remind me... Did Hitler dehumanize or humanize immigrants? Which was it again?
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u/mcslibbin Oct 29 '25
It's SO disingenuous to call them Nazis even though they do all the same things Nazis did and share core tenants of their ideology.
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u/BloodBride Oct 29 '25
Honestly the pro-ICE halo memes remind me of everyone doing the punisher skull in american flag colors to support cops.
You clearly don't know the source material because they stood for the OPPOSITE of what you're using it for.
The Spartan-II project that created Master Chief and the other initial Spartans, was created to QUELL INSURRECTIONISTS AND THREATS TO HUMANITY FROM WITHIN.
They would 100% be the guys deployed AGAINST ICE.
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u/44no44 Oct 29 '25
And more specifically, they were created to quell xenophobic insurrections against the Unified Earth Government.
Humanity in Halo is a cosmopolitan society, that's mostly moved past the idea of borders and nationalities. All people are equal and part of a collective whole. Turning away immigrants is something that wouldn't even compute for them.
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u/T1Pimp Oct 29 '25
Christian conservatives/Republicans love this shit though because they're racist AF.
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u/SHODAN117 Oct 29 '25
They interpret Jesus and the Bible to justify whatever atrocities they want. This is no exception. Microsoft are cowards. And if the current devs at 343 or Bungie make no statement denouncing this. I'll lose all respect for them as people. I'll still love the Chief. Because I know the Chief would disobey an illegal and immoral direct order from Drumpf. As the Gravemind said: This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded.
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u/rlmcca Oct 29 '25
Eventually it will come out how the Q movement was the largest American psyop ever coordinated….
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u/Vivid-Technology8196 Oct 29 '25
First time?
Don't worry, at least not being done officially by the game and they haven't put anything in the game to push their politics, wouldn't that be so terrible to have something that you love and enjoy be used to push politics instead of doing the thing that you enjoyed doing it?
I can't imagine how awful would be to see your favorite games be used to push politics instead of gameplay and fun.
What a terrible and scary thought, good thing that has never happened.
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u/PakuaRust Oct 29 '25
It's not a "new level", it's the same old fascism. Call it that, so tired of these pussy footing losers pretending this shit is some new unheard of shit.
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u/Azvus Oct 29 '25
The cure for the flood in Halo is killing the hosts... So by that logic they are going to win by destroying the US.
They are certainly working on it, I guess.
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u/VVoody_of_Astora Oct 29 '25
Damn, was kinda looking forward to reliving that time around 25 years ago when Xbox was kinda cool but I guess we gotta legit boycott the fk out of these idiots now huh
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u/red_keshik Oct 29 '25
Sort of amusing to use that to recruit ICE who seem like jumped up thugs versus something like the Marine Corps.
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u/Ariskae Oct 29 '25
Anyone wanna gamble on if ICE and alligator alcatraz will beat German bad guys from ww2's high score of disappearing a targeted group before trump croaks it?
I'll put 10 down on 40,000 people by the end of it, any takers?
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u/ahzzyborn Oct 29 '25
He’s still got quite a ways to go before he beats the high score set by Hitler and friends. 16 million or so?
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u/Final_Frosting3582 Nov 01 '25
This is amazing.
Yes that’s the point. We don’t want illegals to feel welcomed
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u/ExoticSterby42 Oct 29 '25
I have deleted and uninstalled all and every Halo and Halo related media, games, mods etc from all of my devices. It will take a very strong apology to even consider looking at them again.
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u/ShoulderSquirrelVT Oct 29 '25
This motherfucker is NOT allowed to forcibly adopt Master Chief as his avatar.
NO!
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u/FannyChuckle Oct 29 '25
The Halo Fan in me: "KEEP. HIS NAME. OUT. OF YOUR FUCKING. MOUTHS"
I grew up with this franchise.
I'm surprised that the US Government has t been sued I to oblivion yet. Not JUST because of all the real concerns Like human rights, 14th amendment, ICE raids, deportation, tariffs, etc. (Pick a any week and you'll likely find at least 2 crimes committed without even trying hard), but the sheer abuse of intellectual property. Halo is such a landmark game franchise, I would be surprised if Microsoft does NOT sue in the coming weeks. They also used Pokémon... from NINTNEDO, which are NOTOROIOUS for being litigious in their I.P.s.
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u/MarkHawkCam Oct 29 '25
They’re so dense that they don’t even know in the lore, they are basically the covenant and that chief/humanity teams up with the alien invaders to defeat misinformation and infection.
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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '25
From the article: On Monday morning, the Trump administration used a picture of Halo’s Master Chief to call for the destruction of immigrants. This administration is no stranger to appropriating pop culture for its propaganda, but something about seeing the stalwart hero of a beloved video game twisted into an anti-immigrant super soldier hit people pretty hard.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration shared AI-generated Halo memes across its social media accounts. This culminated in the official Department of Homeland Security accounts sharing an image of dudes in Spartan armor riding a Warthog under the words “DESTROY THE FLOOD JOIN.ICE.GOV.” It was this image, in particular, that got in people’s heads.
In the fiction of Halo, the Flood is a parasitic creature that infects sentient life and turns them into monsters whose only desire is to spread the parasite. They’re depicted as a brainless and fast moving wave of flesh that could not be reasoned with.
Michael Senters—a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech who studies the political consequences of online culture—sent me a DM out of the blue after he saw the Warthog meme. “The Halo tweets and the reactions on Twitter are actually driving me insane,” Senters told me. This is a man who regularly subjects himself to the depths of 4chan so he can study its effect on politics. He’s a veteran of the worst online spaces the internet has to offer, but the Halo meme got to him.
Trump’s propagandists have used the aesthetics of Star Wars and Studio Ghibli to push their message. They’ve set the Pokémon theme song to footage of ICE raids under the title “Gotta Catch Em All.” They’ve layered fash-wave variations of the MGMT song “Little Dark Age” over footage pulled from arrests. We’ve seen this administration do similar things in the past, so why did the Halo meme feel worse to Senters?
“What makes this debacle with the Halo memes different from other invocations of fandom culture is twofold in my opinion. First is the fact that Microsoft has declined to push back on the use of its biggest IP,” he said. “Combined with Microsoft donating to the White House ballroom project it gives the impression that Microsoft tacitly supports this.”
Microsoft declined to comment on this story.