The article would be most useful as a source for a student research project on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on popular culture.
A big Among Us fan created an edible way to celebrate her fandom. She baked butter cookies shaped and frosted like the online game's brightly colored astronaut avatars and gave them to friends. But in each set of seven was one "impostor" laced with hot habanero pepper—invisible to the eye and nose but not to the tongue. Players of the space-based whodunit will definitely get, er taste, the joke!
In 2020, online gamers pushed Among Us from their smart phones and laptops into the collective consciousness of the gaming world. Homebound and socially distanced by the pandemic, they not only spent hours and hours playing the game online with friends, they also joined millions of others to watch matches streamed by YouTube stars and social media influencers. Tropes and images from Among Us have now jumped into fan art, memes, gifs, TikToks, T-shirts—and yes, baked goods.
The game was by no means an overnight blockbuster. Independent game maker Innersloth launched Among Us to middling success in 2018, and its two-dimensional graphics and simple objectives seemed unsophisticated compared to complex, multi-layered battlefield showdowns, fantasy quests, and so-called sandbox world-building adventures. So why did it grab the attention of the gaming world—and beyond—in 2020? Like most fan-based fads, the reasons for the meteoric rise of Among Us are multifarious and as quirky as the game itself.
Actually, the game's accessibility and relative simplicity have been part of its appeal—it's cheap or free to download and does not require expensive, high-end gaming systems to play. Intuitive and fast-paced game play allows new players, or "noobs," to dress their avatars in silly hats and costumes and quickly join the fun, with most rounds taking less than 10 minutes from start to finish, whether the impostor wins or the crew successfully votes it out of the airlock.
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic in the early months of 2020, and Among Us was ready and waiting. Many tweens and teens were stuck at home, scrolling for something new to pass the time, preferably with friends—however socially distanced they might be. The game's very premise requires "social deduction" as players collaborate and share clues while the impostor tries to trick them, and it is a rare round of Among Us that does not end in a shout of surprise followed by laughter. In short, the game provided fun, shared experiences at a time when people were in desperate need of them.
Jump forward to September 2020 when the game's turnkey qualities met the accelerant of social media. Big-time YouTube stars, TikTok influencers, and Twitch streamers began playing Among Us while the world logged on to watch. Soon, millions of people were glued to their screens like sports fans, offering running commentary in texts, group chats, and online video calls—fans who subsequently downloaded the game. On September 3, Among Us had been downloaded more than 10 million times from Android's Google Play store—by September 21, that figure had eclipsed 100 million.
In a matter of weeks, Among Us burst out, transforming from an online game to a cultural phenomenon. Some fans created wild and humorous memes and gifs and posted them across social media outlets, while others depicted imagined game scenes in the form of fan art. Aficionados posted videos of their best matches or tips for playing and winning. Thanks to Among Us, the term "sus," short for "suspicious," entered the vernacular even beyond the gaming world.
To the game's creators at Innersloth—Amy Liu, Marcus Bromander, and Forest Willard—seeing fans' Among Us-inspired creations was the best reward for the many weeks spent in game development. "They're just so good!" Willard told Escapist Magazine.
Including the cookies—well, all but one of them.
QUESTION 8
8 / 8
This Article would be most useful as a source for a student research project on __________.
how to launch a career as a video game creator
the evolution of complex, multi-layered online games
the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on popular culture
how to stream games using Twitch or YouTube
1 answer