Mario's Nipples

About

Mario's Nipples refers to a series of photoshops and jokes based on a promotional image from the video game Super Mario Odyssey in which the title character's nipples can be seen.

Origin

On September 13th, 2017, the official Twitter^[1] account for the Nintendo video game company tweeted a promotional image of their upcoming title Super Mario Odyssey. In the picture, the character Mario can be seen shirtless and with his nipples exposed. The post (shown below) received more than 2,300 retweets and 7,400 likes in 24 hours.

Spread

Shortly after the picture was released, people on Twitter began reposting the picture. The tweets (shown below) joke about numerous changes to Mario's character as well as Nintendo's direction with the new game.

That night, others began photoshopping the image into other scenarios. Twitter^[2] user @ben_rosen added the picture of Mario to an infamous pornographic Tweet liked by Senator Ted Cruz. The post (shown below) received more than 800 retweets and 2,400 likes in 24 hours.

Throughout the evening, more people on Twitter photoshopped the picture of Mario into other settings (shown below).

The photo also \ appeared on Tumblr. That night, Tumblr^[3] user naols-x3 photoshopped picture of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants licking the shirtless Mario's stomach. The image (shown below) received more than 360 notes in under 24 hours.

Several media outlets reported on the reaction to Mario's nipples, including Kotaku,^[4] Uproxx,^[5] Entertainment Weekly^[6] and more. Additionally, Twitter^[7] published a Moments page regarding the response to Mario's nipples.

Nintendo Response

On February 5th, 2018, Nintendo posted to YouTube an interview with Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoshiaki Koizumi discussing some questions fans had about the designs of the characters. Among the topics broached was Mario's nipples, and why doesn't Mario have a belly button. “Well to be perfectly honest, I didn’t really expect that to be a topic among fans,” Koizumi said. “Once I heard that people were talking so much about Mario’s belly button, it made me start to think about whether we should revisit the topic on the design side.” Additionally, Koizumi confirmed that the mushroom on Toad's head was in fact an extension of his head and not a hat, as it appeared in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. The story was covered by Polygon.^[8]

The story and reveal that Toad's mushroom was his head in particular generated strong responses on Twitter. Twitter user @SheaSerrano tweeted "TONIGHT WE RIOT," gaining 1,200 retweets and 4,800 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user Nibellion joked that a recent drop in the stock market was a result of the news, gaining 7,200 retweets and 16,000 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

External References