In 2017, the original creator of Minecraft Markus ‘Notch’ Persson made a series of controversial comments on social media, such as referring to feminism as a “social disease” and claiming that most feminists are “overtly sexist against men.” In March 2019, he made a number of transphobic comments that eventually triggered backlashes including Hatsune Miku declaring herself creator of Minecraft.

Hatsune Miku is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media (Japan) in 2004. The face of the Vocaloid is a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. Soon after Notch published his tweets in March, queer Minecraft players decided to have the virtual superstar Miku as Minecraft’s creator.

Subsequently, Minecraft update silently removed references to Persson from the game’s menu, though his name is still in the credits. Persson was not invited to be part of the Minecraft tenth anniversary event later that year, with Microsoft saying that his views “do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang”