After Gordon Ramsay and the Kitchen Nightmares memes with Raiden Shogun (Baal), it's now the turn of Elon Musk to inadvertently shake the world of Genshin Impact and its English fan community.
The official Twitter account for Genshin Impact launched on October 14 a particular campaign. If a certain amount of people retweet the campaign, The Genshin Impact Twitter plans to follow Elon Musk and ask him to stream Genshin Impact. This sparked a new controversy on Twitter.
Elon Musk and Ella Musk from Genshin Impact explained
One of the non-playable characters we meet in Genshin Impact is Ella Musk, a scholar who studies the language of Hilichurls, which are the game's version of goblins. The character's name is a reference to Elon Musk. It's a typical pattern in Japanese (stylized) media to feature parodies of popular western personalities. But it's also yet another pattern many Genshin Impact English players are completely unaccustomed to.
Moreover, if you know about the origins of western Fantasy fiction and its monsters reused everywhere such as goblins, you can easily link the dots and see why many are upset about this. Now it looks like Genshin Impact wants to make a real collab with Elon Musk with a Twitter campaign using the character of Ella Musk. However, the campaign so far has mainly only received negative quote retweets.
Elon Musk and the Genshin Impact community
As you already know, Elon Musk has the aura of a self-made genius billionaire in several parts of the world. Including in China. However, this is something that doesn't resonate with the major part of the English fanbase of Genshin Impact. This is why the campaign fails to bring in positive interest.
Right now, the Campaign is unlikely to reach its goals, and miHoYo might cancel it seeing the massive negative feedback. We'll keep you updated on the situation.
It's also interesting to note this is a Genshin Impact English Twitter-only campaign. The Japanese Twitter didn't share nor announce any Elon Musk campaign. Personally speaking, I believe the campaign would have gotten overall a better reception from the Japanese fanbase. Sharing it only there would have been more judicious. Ultimately, everything stems from an issue I've already mentioned during the anniversary rewards discourse: miHoYo is still learning and is struggling to understand the massive English fanbase it suddenly got with Genshin Impact.
Genshin Impact is playable right now on PC, PS4, PS5, iOS, and Android. A Nintendo Switch version is currently in development too. You can always reach me for a chat about Japanese-stylized games on Twitter @A_iyane07.
Elon Musk campaign canceled (Update)
Genshin Impact deleted the Elon Musk Twitter campaign. The campaign was tweeted out at 10:45 PM EST, and was deleted around four hours later, minutes ago as I'm writing this. You can still find a screenshot of the tweet below:
Elon Musk answers the Genshin Impact Official English Twitter Account (Update)
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk ended up noticing the now deleted retweet campaign with Ella Musk. He jokingly tweeted "Can't wait to be in Genshin Impact *laughing emoji*. In follow-up tweets, Twitter users also asked Elon Musk for his favorite anime series. If you know your stuff about anime, you'll notice he answered with a list of series all ranked first on MAL and similar sites.