Watch out, Tom Nook.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined the rest of the world in playing the wildly popular Nintendo Switch game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” during the coronavirus lockdown, she said on Twitter Thursday.
Despite her socialist politics, the freshman firebrand has signed up for the game Wired described as “late-stage capitalism with talking squirrels” — in which players borrow increasingly large amounts of money from raccoon tycoon Tom Nook to renovate their home while stripping nearby islands of natural resources.
AOC announced she was opening her Twitter direct messages “for the first time since the Zuckerberg hearing” to connect with other players so she could drop by their in-game islands.
“Honestly never in my life did I think opening my DMs would grant me faith in humanity but the brief window actually resulted in a lot of these messages being very wholesome,” she said.
“People are asking for surprise visits to their spouse’s islands!! This is the love everyone deserves.”
Players jokingly dressed up Thursday in hopes of a congressional visit.
“Put on my cutest clothes in animal crossing in hopes @aoc will visit,” one user tweeted with a picture of their character.
“Just waiting for @AOC to visit my island, maybe I should change!” another wrote.
Others offered the rookie representative some etiquette advice: “Don’t step on the flowers, and always ask before you pick fruit.”
The Bronx lawmaker is yet to weigh in on the Bank of Nook’s controversial recent move to slash interest rates. The change saw users railing against Nook’s “brutal capitalist instincts” and his monopoly on the game’s economy, according to the Financial Times.
Nintendo Thursday said the game has sold a whopping 13.4 million units in its first six weeks, becoming the Nintendo Switch’s fastest-selling title ever.