Most video game fans have fond memories of playing Super Mario Bros. Whether they played it on the original NES or on one of its many, many remakes, this iconic classic is embedded into our hearts as a pillar of nostalgia.
Maybe that’s why people get so offended when misinformation spreads so hazardously on the internet about the very things we hold most dear.
On Oct. 28, a Twitter page called Historic Vids put out a tweet showing a Mario player traversing a seemingly impossible maze of firebars without getting hit even a single time. The caption of this video reads: “Only six people in the world have ever beaten this level in Super Mario.” The tweet immediately went viral but for all of the wrong reasons.
First off, anybody who’s ever played or seen gameplay of the original Super Mario Bros. can immediately recognize that this is not a real level. Its overwhelming difficulty completely contradicts the intuitive gameplay Nintendo is known for.
The community notes on Twitter quickly clarified that this is actually a level on Super Mario Maker. Specifically, it was a level designed by the user YTSunny in 2019. This level is called “1-1 but with a twist,” and as the name suggests, it is a copy-and-paste version of the original first level of Super Mario Bros. with a slew of firebars mixed in, some even moving as they spin.
The second part of this tweet that’s just plain wrong suggests “only six people” have beaten this level. While it is difficult, it’s actually been beaten hundreds of times. In fact, a harder version made by KingBoo called “1-1 but with a twist x5” requires players to beat the level five times before the timer runs out, and even this level has over 200 players who have beaten it, as shown by the stats displayed on the level’s posting as of eight months ago.
The most laughable part of this post isn’t even the post itself but all of the blue checkmark Twitter users pretending to have beaten this level in their childhood. One such user said “Super Mario Game is a favorite game in my teenage years, these are my unforgettable memories.” Another user was a skeptic but was very off-the-mark when they thought the firebars were edited in after the game footage was recorded.
But even these posts fail to compare to my absolute favorite: an Elon Musk stan saying “I bet one of them was Elon Musk when he was 2.76 years old.”
We all know that Elon Musk has a legion of devoted fans despite his history of making a fool of himself, so seeing one go out of their way to make an unsettling GIF of Elon Musk’s face plastered over a boy giving a thumbs-up is hysterical to me.
It’s something of an unspoken rule on the internet: Whenever somebody makes a claim to have done something, 15 others will reply saying they did it first. It’s no surprise that so many people flocked to this Super Mario Bros. post to lie about their nostalgia or accomplishments, but what they hoped to gain out of it will always be a mystery.
