Animal Crossing Propaganda

For this project, I made spoof propaganda posters for Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is a game where the player is the Island Representative of an island where the player and several villagers relocate to in order to escape everyday life. 

The game has very heavy (and maybe unintentional) capitalistic undertones where the player has to constantly invest in island projects, like building bridges and shops, with their own in-game currency without the assistance of others and are referred to as “donations”. I made a poster with the character Tom Nook, who you talk to in game about these projects. He constantly encourages you to “donate” virtually without any outside financial assistance to fund these projects, so the poster is a reference to how the player is responsible for all the changes in the island involving monetary value. Tom Nook, like the Uncle Sam character, is in a way the personification of the island and its economy.

Within the game, you are allowed to report your villagers if they wear outfits or have catchphrases that you don’t like or deem inappropriate. I made a poster of Isabelle, the player goes to if they wish to report “inappropriate behavior” from island residents. The game is marketed as very family friendly and also very personally customizable, so the game strongly encourages you to use this feature if a villager is doing something you don’t like. I compare this to Red Scare propaganda posters where citizens are encouraged to report anyone that they think might be a communist or soviet sympathizer.

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Within the game, there’s a mechanic where you can invest in turnips. The goal is to sell them for more than you bought them for, and the price changes each day. The player basically wants to sell them for the best possible price before the week is up and they spoil. The game does this to encourage you to convince your friends to play as well so you can compare turnip prices with them, since every island has a unique price. It is definitely not a mandatory thing to do in game, but it is heavily pushed to encourage multiplayer and the risk and reward factor means more playtime. I made a poster of the girl who sells turnips, Daisy Mae, encouraging the player to invest in turnips in order to stimulate the economy and comparing it to liberty bonds during the world wars.