As a Nintendo game, it’s no surprise that Animal Crossing: New Leaf contains some form of control over what you can name your characters. What is surprising, though, is how extensive the list of blocked words is.
The obvious culprits are, well, obvious, but when alientonx tried to get around them with what for most will be an obscure term, he hit the same wall.
The name he entered for his character was “Santorum”.
Now, that’s a real name. Most prominently it’s the name of Rick Santorum, who in 2003 was a Senator at the centre of a controversy over his comments linking gay sex to pedophilia and bestiality.
As a response to this, a campaign was begun – created by columnist Dan Savage and helped along by John Stewart – to turn the name into a slang term meaning “the frothy mixture of lube and faecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex”.
It worked. If you google Santorum now, the top result is the Wikipedia page for the “poop lube” campaign.
I’m kind of impressed this is even a thing in the game. We often think of departments like localisation being the domain of a handful of people, but in Nintendo’s case, I like to imagine entire floors of people, furiously scouring the internet for every word in existence, in any language, that could even remotely be linked to a controversy.
And as we can see here, doing a damn good job!
I tried to name a character Santorum and [Reddit, via Tiny Cartridge]
Does Rick Santorum Really Have a Google Problem? [New York Mag]
Comments
12 responses to “Animal Crossing’s Pretty Good At Blocking Naughty Sex Words”
sounds like they probably just banned the entire urban dictionary
Sounds like a reasonable course of action for anything looking to be family-friendly 😛
Sounds like any family who knows the meaning of the word probably doesn’t need it to be blocked.
Pretty sure the worry is that other people might see the word via Streetpass
What about the man called Santorum? He was a candidate to the US presidency last year.
I wonder if Ham Doctor gets through.
It let me name my town “Buttocks”.
I named my character ballsack and my town vagina, because I am a mature adult player.
Does it really matter what age you are? WHY IN FUCK WOULD YOU NAME SOMEONE BALLSACK? Wow. Your character’s mother must’ve really hated that guy.
For now but some lefty sook might see it complain, then your town will be “Rear End” or “Behind” maybe “Backside” if your lucky.
One just needs to more creative with the words you teach them and make up words that sound filthy but mean nothing, or combine two or three words.
Drake in Beppin was quite receptive to having his catchphrase changed to ‘slagbanger’ the other day.
Correction: It’s the mixture of lube, faecal matter and semen.
I needed this correction. Thank you. Your pedantry made my day so much more icky.
The Kotaku filter is in full effect.
I actually just made an account here to post on this. I use the name Shaftiel in some games, and Animal Crossing wouldn’t let me give that name to my character. I found that rather strange.
Welcome to the ‘Nanny State’ capital Australia, where dogooders do nothing but create laws to restrict everything…………………….. oh what criticism is now banned.
1. It’s a Japanese game.
2. There is an online service called Streetpass that will allow others to see your name in the game (if you so chose to show it).
3. It’s a game aimed at children, and obviously inappropriate language, in conjunction with Streetpass, isn’t exactly viable.
4. It’s hardly 1984.
YO! HIGH 5! You live in the ACT huh? I can confirm that he knows his shit.