The Return of the Edgelord

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, you may have come across a specific type of character. Emo or gothic colour scheme, a dark and mysterious past, doesn’t talk much. These kinds of characters, dubbed “edgelords” by fans, are often over-the-top and ironic today, but back then they were an entirely genuine attempt at coolness.

It almost felt like the early 2000s were oversaturated with edgy characters, to the point where they became heavily mocked. They all started to feel copy-paste, and the kinds of people who associated themselves with these characters were renowned for being some of the most annoying and pretentious people you’d ever meet. They started to disappear from newer games, viewed purely through a lens of nostalgia and irony by the modern gamer.

However, I feel like now we are having a resurgence of the edgelord characters. The poster boy for edgy characters, Shadow the Hedgehog, was the main character in Sega’s trailer for Sonic Racing: Crossworlds and even beat Sonic in the race. Final Fantasy VII legend Vincent Valentine has a whole new wave of fans after his appearance in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and we may possibly even see a remake of his standalone spin-off Dirge of Cerberus.

*I will put my hands up and say I unironically love Vincent Valentine, ever since I saw him in the original Final Fantasy VII. He’s everything an edgelord should be! Source: Square Enix*

I love that we’ve looped all the way back around to these types of characters being cool again. As I mentioned, they were an earnest effort to appeal to the young people of the 90s and 00s, and it really worked. Edgy characters are infamous now, sometimes for the wrong reasons, but there are plenty of people who love them unironically. I’m definitely one of them! And now, they’ve come full circle and become cool again. People express their love for them unironically, and it’s great to see.

I feel like the appreciation for these types of characters also shows our progress on fighting against cringe culture. It’s refreshing to see so many people adopt the “I’m cringe but I’m free” mindset, and genuine appreciation for edgy characters that have been seen as cringe in the past and present is a definite subversion of the cringe culture mentality that has been everywhere over the last decade. A lot of these characters are genuinely cool, and we shouldn’t be ashamed to admit that!