Finally some equality I can get behind.
Game modifications have long been a cornerstone of gaming culture, allowing players to reshape their favorite titles to suit personal preferences. From expansive content additions to difficulty adjustments or cosmetic tweaks, modding has historically represented a bastion of creativity and freedom of expression.
Unfortunately, the modern gaming industry seems increasingly engulfed in a culture war, where freedom of expression is often sacrificed at the altar of political activism.
Platforms like NexusMods and GameBanana, once celebrated as havens for modding communities, have shifted toward enforcing ideological standards. Mods that challenge political messaging in games, such as removing pride flags, disclaimers, pronouns, or murals have been systematically banned under the guise of maintaining inclusivity.
This crackdown has stifled the creative freedom that the modding community once championed, replacing it with an atmosphere of censorship and control.
A particularly glaring inconsistency lies in the treatment of race-swapping mods. For example, mods like White Wyll for Baldur’s Gate 3, which sought to alter an existing ethnic character’s appearance, were banned as “problematic.” Yet, the inverse, transforming white characters into Black or other ethnicities is deemed acceptable.
This double standard exposes a troubling bias in how diversity and inclusivity are enforced within the modding space.
This hypocrisy extends beyond gaming, infiltrating broader cultural landscapes like anime and manga. Artists are routinely harassed for creating lighter-skinned depictions of tanned characters, while activists freely edit characters to impose their own racial identities, under the pretext of fostering “representation” as they are apparently unable to resonate with or relate to specific characters without projecting their own race upon them.
Any criticism of such alterations is swiftly dismissed as racism. This dynamic fosters genuine racial resentment among fans, who notice a glaring double standard of artists repeatedly being targeted and harassed on social media over alleged “whitewashing” regarding aspects like color, shading, or lighting, while the reverse, darkening and deliberately altering characters to appear Black is to be shielded from scrutiny and praised.
The latest chapter in this ongoing saga involves the latest indie hit, MiSide. An indie horror hit released on December 11, 2024, developed by a Russian duo, the game garnered significant attention for its unique narrative and gameplay.
Blending horror, puzzle-solving, and life simulation, MiSide immerses players in a chilling tale of obsession and AI gone wrong.
At the heart of the story is Mita, the game’s main antagonist, a seemingly sweet, innocent girl with a dark yandere twist, whose love for the protagonist turns deadly as her true nature unfolds as her “love” becomes disobedient and attempts to escape his matrix confinement.
The modding community for MiSide has already taken to customizing the game’s experience, from subtle cosmetic changes to full-blown model swaps featuring favorite anime characters. However, one mod in particular struck a nerve with Nexusmods: the Gyaru Mita mod.
This mod supposedly transforms Mita into a “Gyaru,” a style rooted in Japanese youth culture, featuring bold makeup, bleached hair, a celebration of rebellion against societal norms.
Created by SwitcherModder, the “Gyaru Mita” mod transforms Mita into a Black woman, despite its promotion as representing Japan’s iconic Gyaru or “gal” subculture which gained prominence in the 1990s as a bold, rebellious, and fashion-forward aesthetic, celebrated for its focus on beauty, glamour, and self-expression.
The traditional gyaru style is characterized by dyed blonde or brightly colored hair, which may generally include tanned skin, dramatic makeup, and vibrant clothing paired with eye-catching accessories.
Gyaru fashion spans a wide spectrum, from refined, high-end styles to laid-back, streetwear-inspired looks. Originally influenced by Western pop culture, it emerged as a bold rejection of traditional, conservative Japanese beauty standards.
The “Gyaru Mita” mod, however, strays far from embodying the essence of gyaru. Instead, you could argue it comes across as a half-hearted attempt at “blackwashing,” marked by a darker complexion but lacking the signature dyed hair, dramatic makeup, and flamboyant style that define the subculture. It’s a simple skin reshade to appear darker and nothing more.
If we’re being technical, the more accurate term for this not-so-subtle race-swapped version of Mita, which may be co-opting another country’s subculture, would be “Ganguro.”
While gyaru generally revolves around rebellious, unconventional attire and a punk-inspired appearance with a hint of tanning, Ganguro takes it to the next level. These girls are known for their dramatically darker skin tones, pushing the aesthetic far beyond the typical gyaru look.
Ganguro fashion is characterized not only by a deep tan but also by strikingly light, nearly white hair, vibrant or white eye makeup, and bold, often exaggerated clothing that plays with sharp contrasts. Unfortunately, the ganguro craze began to fade around 2000, as the bihaku (“light skin”) trend took hold among young women aiming to emulate the fair-skinned look of their favorite pop idols.
In essence, gyaru does not inherently mean dark skin, only ganguro substyles feature obsessively tanned skin. To claim that all gyarus have tanned skin is a misleading misconception often perpetuated by those either unfamiliar with Japanese culture or attempting to subvert it abroad.
Interestingly, ganguro also has ties to Japanese folklore, where ghosts and demons are portrayed with similar appearances. Researchers in Japanese studies suggest that ganguro represents a form of rebellion against traditional Japanese society, rooted in feelings of neglect, isolation, and societal constraints—an intriguing contrast to modern Western feminists who often co-opt aesthetics under the guise of fighting for equality.
As for the MiSide mod, it was released on December 30th but was swiftly banned later that same day. According to SwitcherModder, their entire Nexus account was also banned as a result of the mod’s removal.
Similar to policies upheld by platforms like ModDB, which prohibit game modifications that disrupt “diversity and inclusivity” principles in games, NexusMods enforces strict rules against mods perceived as offensive. If users create a new account specifically to upload such content, the mod will be removed, and the account banned.
Notably, TheSwitcher’s account was created days earlier, on December 25th, before uploading the Gyaru Mita mod to the platform.
It’s almost refreshing to see political activists applying their standards to both sides of the coin for once. NexusMods, for instance, proudly hosts mods that reimagine characters as Black, such as the Tifandra mod for Final Fantasy VII Remake and the Ashley Dark Skin mod for Resident Evil 4 Remake. While I strongly oppose censorship in any form, I can at least acknowledge a modicum of consistency here.
That said, don’t hold your breath expecting NexusMods to ban mods pushing pronouns, same-sex romance, or similar themes into games, this was likely a one-off.
Before their banning, TheSwitcherModder had uploaded several other mods to NexusMods. Among them was the Immersion Conversion mod for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which adjusted the pigmentation of a Grey Warden’s daughter to match that of the father for consistency.
Additionally, they released the Fair Teia mod for Dragon Age, which altered Teia’s head model and lightened her complexion, a change attributed to personal preference.
It goes without saying that both of these mods were swiftly removed by NexusMods in quick succession, as confirmed by TheSwitcherModder. This likely explains why their most recent mod, Gyaru Mita, was the last they managed to upload before being permanently banned.
NexusMods likely took issue with the fact that this creator had already released two mods altering dark-skinned characters to appear lighter, which they deemed to conflict with their “moral code” thus making the “Gyaru Mita” mod TheSwitcher’s third and final strike.
It’s ironic that the mod itself was the straw to break Nexus’ back given how the “Gyaru Mita” mod did the exact opposite, darkening a fair-skinned character, regardless of the matter Nexus have written off the modder as “trolling,” despite continuing to permit other modifications which transform White characters into Black ones on their platform.
For now, Gyaru Mita still has a home on GameBanana, which has opted to allow the mod despite its falsified portrayal of what defines a gyaru. Additionally, platforms like DEG Mods remain a haven for so-called “problematic” and “offensive” mods that mainstream sites refuse to host.
