This is my new series, The Splatoon Community Explained, where I attempt the impossible task of explaining the Splatoon community/fandom/fanbase/ whatever you want to call it. Today I’m focusing on Frye. Frye is a member of Splatoon 3’s idol group, Deep Cut, along with her counterparts, Shiver and Big Man. She has a fiery personality, a good voice, and good taste in Splatfest teams. And yet, she is possibly the most hated character in the entire Splatoon community. Why? Well, there’s lots of hate on her in the fandom, ranging from small critiques of her design to bias and hatred. Let’s start with the most common example of Frye hate. #1. FOREHEAD SLANDER If you search “Frye hate” on whatever search engine you use, the first thing you’re probably going to find is hate on Frye’s forehead. Some examples are “Roast Frye and her portrait mode forehead”(real Reddit thread), “Frye’s Huge Forehead Explained”(real YouTube video), and a Reddit thread titled, “look at this megamind lookin @ss” about Frye. Even people who are fans of Frye post stuff like “I mean, I like her, but…” and “fixed” versions of Frye. This same hate was inflicted on Pearl, an idol from Splatoon 2 who had a design some people found unattractive, and now that we have Frye (who is adorable, she just has a slightly bigger forehead), she’s basically just a way for Pearl fans to push the hate onto another character. The second-most common type of Frye hate is… #2: SHIVER WORSHIPPERS Another member of Deep Cut, Shiver, has received a lot of attention from Splatoon fans, but not the kind of attention Frye gets. Instead of being hated like Frye, Shiver gets…a little too much praise from the fans. She has a design the community finds conventionally attractive, causing her to be simped for. (Simping is when someone has a crush on a fictional character). This would be fine, as there’s always a character that gets simped for, but this has caused Splatoon fans to join her Splatfest teams even if they’re not even their favorite team, they’re just doing it for Shiver. Not only that, but it also causes the Frye hate to intensify. A similar thing happened with Marina, another idol from Splatoon 2, who wore a skimpy outfit which simps and fans only made skimpier in fanart, and hated on Pearl more. #3: RACISM And no, I’m not talking about that “inkling vs Octoling” stuff that everyone blows way out of proportion. I’m talking about flat-out racism. Frye’s outfit and whole design is modeled after traditional Indian clothing. Instead of saying “oh this is mad max but with squids now” when Chaos won the final fest, Nintendo made a good choice and read “Chaos” as freedom of expression, making each Deep Cut idol modeled after a different culture, and making their music a chaotic(but amazing) mix of three different cultural music styles. Frye has had the biggest Splatfest loss streak in Splatoon history, followed by Marina, another dark-skinned idol. This is not okay. This is a kids game, and being plain RACIST about idols and other characters (and don’t even get me started on all the whitewashing…) is unacceptable. Also, can we just talk about shiver’s wide-@ss head-
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