“This Is What We Do”

Abstract

Chapter 14 explores how Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) became a new protest site for young Hong Kong protesters. As a life-simulation video game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives players a customizable character that can create and decorate a village for a community by developing a deserted island. For Hong Kong protesters, however, this game has not just been a distraction from an unpleasant reality but also a way to keep up their fight without physical clashes with the riot police through a blockaded and networked play with trusted protesters, and to make public their voices within and beyond the in-game villages. Looking at the protesters’ microscaled playful protest based on the game, this chapter also sees how they circulated the captured or recorded in-game protest scenes across social media and how that helped in their proliferation beyond the game’s simulated boundaries.