About

Hire Fans LOL is a copypasta meme in which two images of a video game character, one unaltered and one edited to look glamorous, are shown side-by-side and posted under a variation of the caption, "Pic from the game on the left, fan made on the right. Hire fans lol," the joke being that the edited version looks worse than the original. The copypasta is inspired by a now-deleted 2021 tweet by @ApexAlphaJ ironically criticizing alleged DEI practices in gaming in which they edited the character Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn in an attempt to make her more attractive, resulting in parodies of the post. The copypasta had a resurgence in December 2024 following the announcement of The Witcher 4 and the reveal that Ciri would become the main character.

Origin

On May 29th, 2021, X^[1] user @ApexAlphaJ posted a now-deleted tweet consisting of two side-by-side images of Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, who at the time was at the center of online backlash after some people believed the game devs made her too ugly. The first image is unedited, while the second image is meant to make Aloy look more attractive.

The post read, "Is it me or Sony be making their lead female protagonist look masculine as hell..barely no curves or rough non feminine features.. Unlike the average woman. Like *cough cough..TLOU2's Ellie…etc. Just saying #My2cents Pic from the game on the left, fan made on right. Hire fans lol." The poster has claimed that the post was meant to be taken satirically.^[9]

The post became the subject of memes in the following days, using the phrasing of the post as a copypasta. For example, on May 30th, X^[2] user @Voltaic117 posted a version using two images of Patrick Star, garnering over 25,000 likes in three years.

Spread

2024 Resurgence (Ciri, The Witcher 4)

On December 12th, 2024, The Witcher 4 and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet were announced during The Game Awards 2024 event. Following the announcement, the protagonists of each game garnered backlash for being perceived as unattractive to some.

That day, X user @EndymionYT shared a screenshot of Ciri, writing, "CD PROJEKT RED has completely been hit with the DEI ugly stick. What the fuck is this Ciri? And her voice actor is different too," garnering over 14,000 likes in 10 days.

On December 13th, X^[3] user @CerberusXt posted an edit of Ciri, the protagonist of The Witcher 4, with a glamorized face, writing, "Hire fans lol," garnering over 8,300 likes in four days.

That same day, Twitch streamer and X^[4] user @DenimsTV posted another version of the meme altering Ciri's appearance, writing, "Pic from the game on the left, fan made on the right. Hire fans lol," garnering over 15,000 likes in four days. On December 15th, X^[5] user @outstarwalker posted a version editing Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3, garnering over 8,200 likes in two days.

Also on December 15th, 2024, X^[6] user @mvdpire posted a version of the meme editing Geralt from The Witcher 3, garnering over 30,000 likes in two days. X^[7] user @ChronoKatie did the same thing with another image of Geralt that day, which was reposted to the subreddit /r/gamingmemes^[8] with the title, "Hire fans lol," garnering over 243,000 likes on the former and 540 upvotes on the latter in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References