As protests and ??? ?? ?? ???demonstrations flood the streets of the United States and beyond with people calling for the end of police brutality and abuse of power, there's one place packed with vocal Black Lives Matter supporters that you won't find on any map: Toontown.
Players in Toontown Rewritten(a free-to-play, not-for profit, and barely legal recreation of Disney's defunct MMORPG Toontown) are bringing messages of support to oppressed and abused communities with messages containing "Black Lives Matter" and calls to action to sign petitions and defund the police.
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It just goes to show that you can show up and support this movement no matter how old you are.
As the Toontown Rewrittencommunity comes together to spread these messages, the developers behind the game released a statement that they support players who are using their game as a platform for positivity around diversity, equality, and inclusion. Additionally, the team noted that they will suspend any player using the game to spread any form of hateful oppression.
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Toontown Rewrittenplayers were previously being warned for sharing messages containing "Black Lives Matter," according to some users, but the game has been updated to allow players to use that phrase and other relevant messages within the game without any penalty.
Toontown Rewrittenis a child-focused game, so messages promoting violence are still not allowed in the game. Still, players seem to be able to get their points across.
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Toontownmay seem like a bit of an odd platform for people to spread their messages against police violence and abuse of power, but its core has always revolved around the struggle against systems and people in power. The main enemies in Toontownare Cogs, which are robotic corporate people who are trying to turn the town into a cookie-cut version of their own ideals. There are business Cogs, law Cogs, and cash Cogs, and players take them on by doing gags like hitting them with seltzer or pies.
Club Penguin, another kid-focused online game from the mid-2000s, also saw protests spring up in the Rewrittenversion of the game that officially closed down in 2017.
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For those who either can't get out to protest themselves or are looking for ways to support the movement in creative ways, this method is certainly surprising but ultimately a positive direction as the world expresses its rage and frustration at the systems that continuously do harm to the communities they're supposed to protect.