For anyone who has been on social media like Tiktok, they’re likely familiar with the “they’re a number, but” trend. The purpose of the trend is to say their appearance matches a superficial number and then give them a positive/negative attribute that impacts the original number. For example, someone could say that Mass Effect’s Shepard is a 10, but they’re working under Cerberus. The response would be what number they are as a result (still a 10, a 5, etc), despite their affiliation with the pro-human organization in Mass Effect 2.
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The Single-Player EA Tweet Heard ‘Round the World
While many have taken EA’s tweet this way, it stands to reason that the joke was meant to go in a different direction, and EA didn’t exactly understand the trend. Their tweet states that “they’re a 10, but they only like playing single-player games.” Many have taken this tweet to suggest that single-player games are a negative attribute (since 10 is maxed), and the irony runs through given some of EA’s most popular single-player games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
No one is to blame for this tweet being read this way, given it’s a trend, but the verbiage would suggest a simple misunderstanding. It’s not that playing single-player games is meant to be a negative attribute, but more likely that they’re too busy playing single-player games to do something more relationship-oriented, like playing co-op or multiplayer games. The joke, read this way, is less negative and may line up with what the original tweet was supposed to mean.
Of course, the intent of a joke matters less than how it impacts its audience. Many were notably quite upset or angry with the tweet, while others let it roll off their back. It’s certainly not the worst tweet of all time, but it didn’t land the way it was likely intended to. That’s because the social media/TikTok trend took precedence over the more naive nature of the joke.
All in all, the tweet is still up, and EA has responded. The official Twitter account recognized it deserves the roast and is taking “this L,” before appropriately following the trend by saying it makes single-player lovers an 11. Credit where credit is due, and it’s likely better that EA didn’t delete the tweet after things went south.
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