Photoshopped Little Mac

About

Photoshopped Little Mac is a sarcastic remark used by members of the Super Smash Bros. community in response to any supposed leaks surrounding the game. It can be used to deride any leak, regardless of credibility and/or actual similarity to the character Little Mac.

Origin

Before the fighting game Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS was released, wild speculation about the game's cast of playable characters was very common. On August 20th, 2014, YouTube user EverythingSmash uploaded a video in which he supposedly leaked the entire roster.

This video immediately came under scrutiny from the gaming community, where many viewers doubted its credibility. Several days later, YouTube user RelaxAlax analyzed the video in detail, explaining which parts he believed to be fake and why. One of the claims made in the video was that a render of the character Shulk, whose inclusion in the character list was not confirmed, greatly resembled an already confirmed character, Little Mac. This similarity led RelaxAlax to speculate that perhaps the Shulk image was a Photoshopped picture of Little Mac. The comparison can be seen in the video below, beginning at 13:11.

While RelaxAlax's video racked up a significant number of views and caused many in the community to agree with his point of view, the game's release in Japan ultimately proved the entire leak as true.

Spread

Even after the game's release, supposed 'leaked' downloadable content such as Rayman, Roy, and Ryu (the latter two of which turned out to be true) was sarcastically referred to as being a 'photoshopped Little Mac' in reference to RelaxAlax's comparison, often with a photo of Little Mac jokingly superimposed over the character. The term "Photoshopped Little Mac" has been used 209 times on the GameFAQ message boards, and 27 times on the 4chan videogame board /v/, and 579 times in YouTube video titles and comments. At some point after the release, the meme was added to the TVTropes page for Super Smash Brothers.

On October 28th, 2018, Redditor ^[6] AetherIke posted in the /r/smashbros subreddit "There was this cut / poorly cropped image of Olimar + Little Mac on the site in September." The post received more than 5,600 points (92% upvoted) and 1,200 comments in 24 hours.

They continued:

"This badly cropped spot where Mac's right hand glove is at, you can see Isaac's in that exact same spot! Holy moly guys, I think this is it. This leads us to believe that plant item was Isaac supposed to have BEEN in the game already, but wasn't announced for other reasons! As a guy who plans to Main Isaac, I am READY."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References