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Were We All Too Worried About 'Elephant Peach?' The 'Hype' Over Mario's New Power-Up Explained
On August 31st, Nintendo released a Direct focused entirely on their upcoming Super Mario side-scroller, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Though the trailer had some fun information about the upcoming game, a certain subset of online folks were very excited about — or very afraid of — Elephant Peach, a version of Nintendo's Princess Peach transformed into an elephant after getting the game's new Elephant power-up.
What Is "Elephant Peach"?
Like Elephant Mario, Elephant Peach is merely Peach with Wonder's elephant power-up, turning her into what resembles an elephant in Peach's dress. In the game, the elephant power-up allows the playable cast to beat away obstacles with their new, elephant trunk, as well as store water and sneeze it out to clear levels.
Why Were People Scared About "Elephant Peach"?
The "hype" around Elephant Peach, if you want to call it that, centered around what would surely be a deluge of fan art about the character, and not necessarily fan art that most people want to see.
Surely, the internet's predilection for body inflation art and graphic art about Peach meant that Elephant Peach would result in lots of Rule 34, doomed to appear on unsuspecting users' social media feeds, much like it did when the Super Crown power-up from New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe led to a literal symphony of artwork.
In fact, there already was a small art craze surrounding Elephant Peach before her reveal, as fan artists had begun imagining Elephant Peach after the reveal of Elephant Mario.
What's The State Of Elephant Peach Fan Art?
It's only been a week since Elephant Peach's reveal, but the fandom around the character has been relatively muted in contrast to what people were expecting. While there is definitely graphic art of the character floating around social media, the internet hasn't seen the kind of fan art outpouring one might expect after the Super Crown craze of 2019.
While it's unclear why Elephant Peach hasn't become a massive viral meme, perhaps the answer has something to do with the fact many were expecting it to become a meme. The Super Crown and subsequent Bowsette craze was a completely organic social media trend, as though the fandom had completely overtaken the narrative and excitement about New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe from Nintendo.
Nintendo may not have intended to generate the exact same reaction with the elephant power-up, but it was clearly a big focus of the trailer, as though Nintendo expected the internet to "do its thing" with the new character designs. So did many others online, however, which sucked the element of surprise out of any Elephant Peach artwork. One couldn't share and potentially shock others with wild artwork of Elephant Peach because many people were expecting to come across wild artwork of Elephant Peach on their own.
As such, Elephant Peach has become a humble-but-not-earth-shattering meme, enjoyed by fans of the character but not really spreading widely outside of the fandom. Still, it has only been a week since Elephant Peach debuted, and perhaps a viral moment in a subsequent Wonder trailer or the game itself could push Elephant Peach to meme stardom. For now, Elephant Peach is, more or less, just another Mario character.
For more information, check out Elephant Peach on Know Your Meme.
