Animal Crossing players organize virtual vigils for the Tiananmen Square crackdown

Hong Kong banned the annual commemoration of the bloody crackdown, citing restrictions on gatherings because of Covid-19

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“Don’t forget June 4th,” says the pixel art on this Animal Crossing island. (Picture: Jovy Ip via Facebook)

Masha Borak

Published: 7:10pm, 4 Jun 2020Updated: 7:10pm, 4 Jun 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

For the first time in 30 years, Hong Kong banned an organized commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, citing restrictions on gatherings amid the Covid-19 pandemic. So instead, players of the popular Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing: New Horizons have found their own way to mark the event with a virtual candlelight vigil.

Animal Crossing players started marking the event early by uploading photos to social media showing their virtual islands featuring candles, images of tanks, slogans and the numbers “8964,” signifying June 4th, 1989, the day of the crackdown.

Last year, more than 180,000 people joined the vigil in Victoria Park on June 4th. It’s seen as an important marker of Hong Kong’s freedoms under the “one country, two systems” model that gives it some autonomy from mainland China.

The virtual commemoration marks yet another way Hongkongers have turned Animal Crossing into a space for expressing political views. Earlier this year, while many people in the city were still staying home out of fear of Covid-19, scores of players designed and displayed protest art in the game in hopes of continuing the momentum of last year’s pro-democracy protests.

Customized virtual islands that take aim at Chinese President Xi Jinping and Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam started going viral on Twitter. Soon after that, in early April, ecommerce platforms in mainland China removed the game.