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What Is The 'Recast Eggman' Campaign? Why Some 'Sonic' Fans Want Voice Actor 'Mike Pollock' Fired Explained
A sector of the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom is going to war right now after Eggman's longtime voice actor, Mike Pollock, found himself embroiled in controversy this week.
Mike has been the subject of on-and-off controversy since May 2024 when he was hit with accusations of being a Zionist. Now, the hashtag "#RecastEggman" is being used to call for Sega to fire him.
So what exactly did Mike do to get all this backlash and is it justified? Here's what you need to know.
What Is The 'Recast Eggman' Campaign?
The "recast Eggman" campaign is a movement to get Mike Pollock, the main voice actor for Eggman since 2003, fired and have Eggman recast with another voice actor. The hashtag started in May 2024 after Pollock voiced his support for freeing Israeli hostages in a tweet.
Pollock was met with accusations of being a Zionist for showing support for Israelis and he didn't back down from the accusations. Instead, he embraced the label and made snarky jokes to his online critics, some of which were deemed inappropriate.
He doubled down on his support not just for Israel, but for peace, denouncing the taking of hostages by both Israel and Palestine.
The controversy culminated in a Twitter Space in which Mike made his stances on the situation clear.
Mike, a Jewish man, admitted that he probably has biases towards Israel and that he wants peaceful coexistence, rather than further fighting. Still, some were unable to accept Mike's stance and kept the "#RecastEggman" hashtag going.
Did Mike Pollock Encourage Harassment Toward A Twitter User?
On February 12th, 2025, Twitter user @DewEnjoyer, better known as Juno, made a post criticizing Mike for supposedly being a Zionist and sharing excitement over the eventual recasting of Eggman. The post gained over 17,000 likes in just a few days, but some fans of Mike purportedly went to Juno's DMs to harass them.
Juno made a post asking Mike to call off his fans, on which he commented and deleted, "Hey weirdo fanbase, don't call Juno slurs in DMs! Do it publicly, I guess."
Mike has since claimed that the comment was meant to be sarcastic, which is why he deleted it and reposted the comment, this time simply reading, "Hey weirdo fanbase, don't call Juno slurs in DMs!"
Despite this, the comment went viral and gave the "recast Eggman" campaign a boost, resulting in a big increase in the use of the hashtag and calls for Mike's firing.
For the full history of the recast Eggman movement, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.
