The Pokémon Company International has criticised the Trump administration’s use of its characters and imagery in political meme posts. The latest example was a still image from the newly released Pokopia that has been altered to feature the slogan “Make America Great Again”, with series mascot Pikachu poking out from behind the “e” in “Make”.
“We were not involved in its creation or distribution, and no permission was granted for the use of our intellectual property,” said Pokémon spokeswoman Sravanthi Dev (thanks, BBC). “Our mission is to bring the world together, and that mission is not affiliated with any political viewpoint or agenda.”
The Pokémon Company has previously criticised the White House for the use of Pokémon imagery in what Trump administration spokeswoman Abigail Jackson has previously described as “engaging posts and banger memes” which are “successfully communicating the president’s extremely popular agenda.”
In September last year, the White House posted a video showing arrests being made by US border patrol and ICE agents, intercut with footage from the opening credits of the Pokémon anime featuring Ash Ketchum. The video used the Pokémon tagline “gotta catch ’em all” and ended with digitally altered versions of Pokémon trading cards featuring the faces of people arrested by ICE and listing their alleged crimes.
“We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand,” the Pokémon Company said in a statement at the time. “Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”
The Pokémon Company has declined to say whether it intends to pursue a lawsuit against the US government.
In response to the company’s statement, the White House pointed to a post on X by spokesman Kaelan Dorr, which features a screenshot of a Wall Street Journal article from July 16, 2016, headlined “Hillary Clinton’s campaign uses Pokémon Go to register voters.” At the time Clinton was running against Trump in the presidential election, and made reference to Pokémon Go when discussing how to engage younger voters, saying: “I don’t know who created Pokémon Go, but I’m trying to figure out how we get them to Pokémon Go… to the polls!”
Dorr adds the following caption to the above: “Hey Mr Pikachu, big fan. Question for you—why no response to articles like this? Seems kinda like you ARE maybe affiliated with a political viewpoint, no? Just sayin'”
The Pokémon Company is not the first brand or artist to complain about the unauthorised use of its material in Trump administration memes, and the belligerent response from the White House is typical. Dorr has subsequently posted a mocked-up image of Trump as a Pokémon trading card.
Videogames seem to be a favourite of this administration: In the last two hours the official White House account, and I can’t quite believe I’m typing this, has posted the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas meme featuring lead character CJ, in the context of destroying the Iranian regime. Last year it used Halo imagery to aggrandise Trump, and this week posted a video mixing images from the war in Iran with clips from Call of Duty.
