Essential Transcore

Submission 6,796

Part of a series on Exploitables. [View Related Entries]

About

Essential Transcore refers to an exploitable meme compiling video games that are supposedly "essential transcore," meaning games typically enjoyed by trans gamers. The meme was originally posted online in late 2022 and became the subject of criticism in August 2023 when it was reposted to X, with some suggesting the games shown are simply popular games played by many who are not transgender. The meme inspired parodies that month compiling other -core games, such as "essential trollcore" and the controversial "essential Nazicore."

Origin

On October 19th, 2022, an anonymous Ganker^[1] user posted an image compiling the covers of various video games they deem "essential transcore," meaning games that trans gamers perceivably tend to enjoy or that they should play, asking, "how many of these are your favorites?" (shown below). The image was reposted to iFunny^[2] on November 28th and X^[3] on December 8th by @vergilswarrior, writing, "What the fuck does this even mean dude?😭" garnering over 2,400 likes on the latter in eight months.

The list includes games like Fallout: New Vegas and Celeste, both of which have previously been noted online as games enjoyed by the trans community, alongside games with notably wide appeal like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Spread

The post gained some criticism in late 2022 for including games that many people outside of the transgender community enjoy which are not necessarily reflective of the trans community. For example, on December 9th, 2022, X^[4] user @SuperTecmoBo reposted the meme, writing, "man these trans women are REALLY into these things made for nerdy guys, how novel!" garnering over 460 likes in eight months.

On August 9th, 2023, X^[5] user @BorodaFromMiami posted the meme, writing, "I wanna make a version of this image but it will be Essential Nazicore What games should I add?" That day, trans X^[6] user @travisscottswag also posted the meme, writing, "I have played and beaten every single one of these games," garnering over 1,100 likes and 1,900 quote-reposts in 13 days (shown below, left). Some X users began using the "essential transcore" banner as an exploitable in the quote-reposts,^[11] attaching it to images to deem them, often sarcastically, "essential transcore (examples shown below, center and right).^[12]^[13]

On August 10th, X^[7] user @BorodaFromMiami posted their finished compilation of "essential nazicore" under @travisscottswag's post, garnering over 1,800 likes in 12 days (shown below, left). On August 13th, X^[8] user @DeadRuinsN4 posted an "essential trollcore" compilation, garnering around 80 likes in nine days (shown below, right).

On the same day, X^[9] user @travisscottswag posted an edited version of the meme, writing, "A lot of people raised complaints about the "Essential Transcore" image i posted a few days ago […] I took them into account. Here's my new, updated version of that image," garnering around 120 likes in nine days (shown below).

On August 22nd, X^[10] user @enigma0451 posted, "Remember that infamous 'Essential Transcore Games' meme? Well, somebody made a Nazicore Games meme as well. Both templates had Fallout New Vegas on it. So, this popped into my head," alongside a meme showing Chudjak and a trans Wojak together, garnering over 70 likes in under a day (shown below).