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Harassment, hoaxes, mob justice, public shaming, doxing, citizen journalism, disinformation, snuff, celebrity breakdowns, racist chat-bots, joke plagiarism and an endless stream of delectable cat gifs. The effects of the rise of social media on humanity are myriad, varied and - let's give them the benefit of the doubt - unforeseen by the creators of these ubiquitous platforms. What a time for Nintendo to launch its own variant, when the company's American office is embroiled in a publicity storm that is playing out, principally, on Twitter. Miitomo is a different sort of social media platform to the current titans of the landscape, although, like them, it too is defined by its restrictions as much as its features. Twitter (for now at least) limits us to 140 character utterances. Snapchat's messages self-destruct on delivery. Instagram is life viewed through a clutch of kindly filters. Miitomo, meanwhile, is defined by exactly the kind of restrictions you might expect from such a conservative and image-conscious company. You cannot upload photographs of your pet or baby for example. You cannot link to divisive thinkpieces, or call out your boss for sexist behaviour. It's unlikely that anybody is going to get fired anytime soon thanks to an ill-judged Miitomo status update.
There are structural reasons for this. For one, there's a certain level of remove between you and your Mii, your cartoonish avatar who lives in a pokey, largely unfurnished apartment. On Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and all the rest, there's inevitably a gap between you as a human being and your online persona, even if it's a gap created by omission rather than fabrication. It's unlikely, for example, that you share every thought and detail of your life with your friends and family. It's unlikely that you always look quite so good as your profile pic. Miitomo makes the distinction clearer and explicit: the Mii that you create and "keep", as the game puts it, rather sinisterly, inside your "device", is not you, per se. It is your representative, as much as your representation.
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