“THE AESTHETICS OF REBELLION ARE WORN BY THE ACOLYTES OF THE REGIME:”
We live in a backwards age where the aesthetics of rebellion are worn by the acolytes of the regime. If someone is goth or otherwise weird-looking, you can be reasonably sure they hold all of the Approved Opinions, or at least mouth them fervently. https://t.co/agDLqcg8vT
— Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) February 2, 2026
This is why the British government coding Amelia with the aesthetics of rebellion was such a strange choice: Amelia Victorious: How to Lose the Culture War With a Video Game.
There’s something genuinely funny going on in the United Kingdom right now.
The British government’s Prevent office, housed under the Home Office (think Department of the Interior, but allergic to dissent), partnered with a media nonprofit called Shout Out UK (like a PBS focused on preventing “radicalism”) to come up with a clever new way to re-educate British youth.
The concern, as always, was “radicalization.” They thought the solution was inspired: a choice-based video game. Kids like games. Games involve decisions. Decisions shape values. What could possibly go wrong?
Thus Pathways was born, a government-funded interactive morality play designed to gently shepherd British children toward being properly antiracist, properly accepting, and properly enthusiastic about the ever-increasing number of migrants reshaping their country. Civics class, but fun. And digital. And corrective.
As part of this effort, the designers introduced a character named Amelia, a cute, purple-haired, vaguely goth girl who carries a Union Jack and talks about Britain being for the British. She was meant to function as a warning, a living illustration of how nationalism can look attractive, even charming, and yet be dangerous to the impressionable youths of Britain who may not have fully internalized the idea that Brexit is bad and they are to obey their elitist overlords.
What they did not anticipate was that the public would take one look at adorable, charming Amelia and decide she was the good guy.
QED: