UK schoolgirl game character Amelia co-opted by far-right

Amelia, a rebellious Goth schoolgirl in a choker necklace, is a character in an online game called Pathways, funded by the UK's interior ministry and designed for secondary schools in northeast England.

The game is part of a government anti-radicalisation programme called Prevent and models risky behaviour such as joining banned groups, as a warning against extremism.

Amelia complains that migrants are taking local jobs and asks classmates to join a secret group defending "English rights".

With clunky graphics, the game was derided by some mainstream media.

But the far right mockingly adopted Amelia as a mascot, with an account on X, apparently based in Britain, posting in her name and selling a cryptocurrency named after her.

X platform owner Elon Musk, who has 233 million followers, has reposted one of the account's posts about English identity.

Users have generated AI videos where Amelia waves the Union Jack flag and vows to "remove the Islamists from our government and our country".

An anonymous far-right influencer account on X, Basil the Great, called Amelia an "icon of resistance".

The Amelia meme "spread very rapidly over a very short period of time", said Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank.

Far-right bloggers cast her "in the light of a freedom fighter defending herself against migrant men", he told AFP.

Users posted AI videos of Amelia striding around London in a mini-dress, hitting Prime Minister Keir Starmer and slinging homophobic and racist insults.

She is also shown hugging Paddington Bear and meeting Harry Potter.

The meme is "catchy" and "very sexualised", Venkataramakrishnan said.

Matteo Bergamini, founder of Shout Out UK, which created the game, told AFP the organisation had seen increased traffic to its website, both from the UK and abroad.

Staff have also received "threats and malicious communications from extremists" which police are investigating, he said in replies to questions from AFP.

"We need to bear in mind that now, even a female cartoon character from an online learning tool can be sexualised and exploited by bad actors," the social enterprise founder said.

Bergamini condemned what he called the "calculated monetisation of hate and rage".

The meme has spread to the United States, with one AI-generated video showing President Donald Trump embracing her and saying "America loves Amelia".

AFP factcheckers found accounts in German and Dutch spreading Amelia memes.

Users have also created a German version of the character, wearing a traditional dirndl dress and called Maria, and a Dutch one called Emma, they found.