Hideo Kojima on right next to Tetsuya Yamagami, the assassin, left.

Shortly after the assassination of Shinzo Abe early this morning, news about the murder of the former Prime Minister of Japan spread quickly as people were scrambling for details.

As is usual whenever these types of things happen, people go online and spread misinformation about who is allegedly responsible. This time, the target of the misinformation was prolific video game auteur and pseudo-political activist Hideo Kojima, the father of many beloved game series.

The reasoning for Kojima's falsely claimed involvement came in the form of a photo taken of the assassin (whose real name is Tetsuya Yamagami), which was compared to pictures of Kojima with Russian and anti-capitalist iconography, as well as a Joker shirt. A thread was made on 4chan that labeled Kojima the shooter, which is what inspired others to create images and suggestive memes that pointed to Kojima as the one involved.

Whether an earnest mistake or simply a meme, the posts about Kojima being responsible with pictures of him portrayed as a devout anti-capitalist proved plausible to some, as multiple news sources abroad purportedly picked up on the story and ran with it — broadcasting to multiple countries that Hideo Kojima, "the radical," was responsible for this assassination despite no evidence for or against it.

This blunder was picked up by people across social media, who quickly called out the Greek news station and French politician who said Kojima's name in relation to the assassination.

If you're used to being in meme circles during tragedies, you may be wondering, "What about Sam Hyde?"

In a long-standing series of memes, Hyde has consistently been blamed online and pushed as the main suspect in almost every single tragedy to happen over the last several years — and this incident was no exception. While there were some actors online pushing the Kojima angle, many who weren't new to the game had posts already memeing about Sam Hyde's alleged involvement.


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Comments 4 total

Bobby G

Intern makes a bad Steven Armstrong joke.
All News Anchors: "Breaking News! Legendary Game Designer Assassinates senator!"

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Noside

Sometimes people are plain stupid assuming that a particular person is indeed the one referring to.

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ConspiracyNut

When Kojima wants a politician dead, he makes them a boss in his games.

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