❘ Published: 2022-12-09T04:29:41
❘ Updated: 2022-12-09T17:00:01
The Game Awards 2022 went off mostly without a hitch — until the Game of the Year award presentation. After Elden Ring’s developers gave a speech, a stage stormer stepped up to the mic with a bizarre “Bill Clinton” spiel and was promptly arrested.
The Game Awards are the night of nights for the gaming industry, celebrating the best releases of the year.
However, 2022’s celebrations were cut short for FromSoftware, the developers of Elden Ring. After they walked up on stage to accept their award and give a speech about the challenges they went through creating the game, someone snuck up and stepped up to the mic.
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“I would like to dedicate this award to my reformed Orthodox Rabbi, Bill Clinton, thank you, everybody,” the person said, before getting escorted off stage by security. People have stated this is an anti-Semitic statement.
The moment had the crowd stunned, and sent Twitter into a frenzy. Bill Clinton quickly trended on the platform as people made memes about the bizarre interaction.
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Early fingers were pointed at one streamer: Wantep. Known for his stream-sniping antics previously, it wouldn’t be beyond the keel for him to do it on gaming’s biggest stage. Some even drew parallels to their striking resemblance. However Wantep did tweet about the incident live saying “we do a lil trolling,” so it’s unlikely.
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Another person claimed to have been texting the person behind it, saying they hatched a plan days out to sneak onto the stage and grab the mic. Their name wasn’t revealed.
Whoever it was, The Game Awards showrunner Geoff Keighley revealed they were arrested shortly after the saga: “The individual who interrupted our Game of the Year moment has been arrested.”
The individual who interrupted our Game of the Year moment has been arrested.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 9, 2022
It’s a sour note on a celebratory night for the gaming industry, but it’ll be talked about for years to come given all the Bill Clinton memes and discourse in the short period after.