The "Space Buns" Controversy

About

The "Space Buns" Controversy refers to a heated internet debate in late 2020 over a player's choice of hairstyle in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The focus of the controversy stemmed from the racial undertones present in the hairstyle, which quickly turned into an online fight between representation in media vs. digital avatar cultural appropriation and the skin tone of the player. The debate spread beyond Animal Crossing to broader discussions on ethnic hairstyles but eventually died down in mid-2021.

Origin

The controversy began on November 20th, 2020, when Twitter user stardewleaf posted a picture to her account with her Animal Crossing: New Horizons player character sitting on the floor with the caption "Cute space buns :3." The original tweet has since been deleted, but a screencap of it was reposted to Imgur^[1] (shown below).

The initial reaction, much like the original thread, was deleted during the controversy, but it was later reuploaded to the subreddit /r/cringetopia on November 21st, 2020, by Redditor^[2] Noob_CZ, earning 63,000 upvotes in two years (shown below).

Spread

The controversy over "Space Buns" created a lot of back and forth between supporters and detractors in the following weeks, with one of the defining things in the debate focusing much of the criticism toward white users from other white users. This was something touched on with the original detractor, who had a white-appearing profile picture, and was then touched on in memes depicting white people silencing Black people who were defending the use of the Space Buns hairstyle by anyone of any race. An example of this was posted by Twitter^[3] user @ChelleDoggo on November 26th, 2020, earning 45 likes in two years (shown below).

On April 13th, 2021, the original poster that started the controversy, Fifi, posted an update that stated they were deleting their Twitter account because they could no longer deal with the ongoing drama that their presence and the controversy itself caused. This message was saved and tweeted out on April 21st by Twitter^[4] user @CoolYoshiFacts, where it gained 4,600 likes in one year (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References