Gaming

“Tom Nook Watches Me While I Sleep”: All The Best ‘Animal Crossing’ Memes

'Animal Crossing: New Horizons' has already proved ripe for meme potential.

by Joseph Earp  21 March 2020
Animal Crossing Tom Nook meme

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons is peculiarly well-suited to the times in which it has dropped.

After all, most of us are stuck at home, socially isolated and unable to live our lives as usual, out in nature. Which makes a game all about social connections and communing with plants, trees, and a multitude of bugs a nice escape.

Animal Crossing has always been calming, first and foremost, and what more do we need in the age of coronavirus than some bright colours, soothing noises, and a feeling like we’re doing something with ourselves?

Of course, it’s not just been the game itself that’s been ultra heartwarming. It’s also been the influx of memes that have come with it.

A lot of said memes have focused on Tom Nook, the overlord of Animal Crossing who we can all agree is a cruel and brutal oligarch who should be violently deposed.

That said, there is at least a subset of the population who reckon that Nook and his newly-coined ‘Nook Miles’ are better than the conditions of capitalism most of us live under. Which like, fair enough.

Then there are all the Nookless memes, equally wonderful and disturbing in their great power.

Truly these are the communal experiences that we need in the middle of dark, dark times.