Everyone’s heard of “Helldivers” right? If you haven’t, here’s an explanation: “Helldivers” is a game series following super soldiers (the namesake of the game) that defend Super Earth from evil aliens and murderous machines. At least, that’s what the game jokes about it being. In reality, the truth is more complicated than that.

For example, the “super soldiers” are anything but. Not only are the Helldivers expendable, but they’re mass produced and also not as noble as advertised. The aliens aren’t exactly innocent, but they aren’t the ones who’ve started the conflict. The bug aliens known as the Terminids, were invaded by Super Earth for oil. Sound familiar?

Anyhow, this led to the conflict of the first game, and now the conflict of “Helldivers 2”. While Super Earth calls all its enemies fascists, this is a known projection tactic that real life fascist and imperialist regimes have employed in the past. The developers of “Helldivers” know this because that’s the point. To most, “Helldivers” is satirical and isn’t supposed to be taken at face value.

After all, how can alien bugs that can’t talk and have no cities be fascist? There’s an obvious disconnect between what’s said and what we actually see in the game. “Helldivers” parodies popular propaganda techniques and makes it obvious that it’s doing a bit, yet some people still take it as 100% fact.

This is a dangerous mindset to have as this means these people are liable to fall for real life propaganda as well. To be completely fair, no one is immune to propaganda and even the people who know it’s a joke should be mindful of what they’re interacting with. Despite what some might believe, we see propaganda everyday. Some of the news articles that Google, Microsoft, and many other corporations that own news sites are very much propaganda.

This is stating the obvious of course, but it should be known that it’s more than just a handful. A common misconception is that propaganda always looks like World War II era posters filled with racial discrimination or articles from shady websites that you’ve never seen before.

In reality, propaganda takes on various forms, from AI imagery of Kamala Harris as a “communist”, to articles claiming someone made thousands of dollars doing “nothing”. Yes, both of those are propaganda despite contrary belief. To combat propaganda, it’s important to know what it is in the first place.

Everyone knows propaganda is deliberate misinformation designed to manipulate the masses into believing in a cause. However, propaganda is also used to spread a particular belief and/or point of view as well. In other words, propaganda is professional lying and gaslighting. It’s not just making something up to be cheeky, it’s fabricating information for a sinister purpose.

While games like “Warhammer” and “Helldivers” often make light of the more obvious and archaic forms of propaganda, they miss the mark on the more subtle types. This is not a dig on either of these properties or any similar ones to them of course. However, satire is a dying art in an age of misinformation.

More and more people believe what they’re told without even researching if the info given to them is true first. Cliques and echo chambers are formed, lies are spread, and obviously edited images and tongue in cheek jokes are used as factual information. Worst of all, “articles” from non-credible websites like Twitter/X and Facebook are used as sources for arguments.

It shouldn’t have to be said why that is ridiculous. Flipping back to fascism, this is a bad sign. Obviously misinformation is bad, but the problem isn’t just the fake news and doctored imagery. The real underlying issue is the degradation of intelligence and integrity of not just the news industry, but the people who follow it.

Satirical jingoism is “Helldivers” is very funny to play along because it’s entertaining. Unfortunately, there are too many people who are unironically rooting for the Helldivers, despite it being fairly clear that they’re not in fact, the unabashed good guys. We have to remind ourselves that pretending to be a fascist is hilarious up to a point.

When we start to get a little too riled up and let actual fascism slide for the sake of the joke or because of peer pressure, then we’ve gone too far. This isn’t harking back to any specific incident, but this plagues the fandom of Helldivers and many games like it. The things said in the game happen in real life too, albeit differently.

No one can resist all propaganda, no matter how informed they are. However, we can be mindful of what we believe and reduce the chances of spreading false information. Stay informed, double check everything, assess your bias, and never immediately believe in anything. Be careful on the Internet.