A new anti-Trump billboard compares him to angry internet trolls in a popular online game
A new anti-Trump billboard in the middle of the University of Central Florida is probably completely unintelligible to most people. It reads, "Donald Trump mains Hanzo and complains about team comp in chat."
But for those who play Blizzard's hit multiplayer shooter "Overwatch," the phrase will be immediately understandable - and frankly, hilarious.
Here's the long and short of it, for the uninitiated: "Overwatch" is a team-based competitive shooter made by Blizzard wherein teams of six players fight against each other. Players can choose from a roster of 22 characters, each of which has a distinct role, with strengths and weaknesses that make them valuable in some situations and not in others.
In order for a team to win, players have to be flexible and willing to swap characters on the fly if the current team composition isn't working.
One of the most popular - but also one of the most challenging - character picks is Hanzo, the angsty, sad, archetypal lone-wolf archer. This guy:
And, among the "Overwatch" community, those who "main" Hanzo - or play him in every game - have a somewhat negative reputation. He can be a devastating opponent in the right hands, but he isn't always the best pick - especially when there are huge holes in the team's composition.
So, basically, the billboard asserts that Trump is the kind of guy who will pick Hanzo no matter what, even when the team's composition noticeably needs a different role to be filled, and then will blame the rest of the team when the match doesn't go well - that's the "compains about team comp in chat" part of the equation.
The website the billboard links to, TrumpIsNotATeamPlayer.com doubles down on these comparisons.
Beside illustrations of Trump as various "Overwatch" characters are common excuses players use to excuse their poor performance. For instance, the ad below - "The controller is broken!" - is a similar excuse Trump has used; in this case, blaming the microphone for his performance at the first debate against Hillary Clinton.
This billboard and its corresponding website came from a Super PAC called the Nuisance Committee, which is funded entirely by the folks who made Cards Against Humanity, the popular and extremely vulgar card game known for its ruthless cultural commentary.
"We're trying to remind college students, young people, gamers that they need to stand up and be counted," Melissa Harris, spokesperson for the Nuisance Committee, told Slate via email. "And ['Overwatch'] is the 'it' game right now."