Untitled Goose Game has one of the most novel video game premises in some time. The player, assuming the role of a goose, goes around just sort of tormenting any person unfortunate enough to live in its vicinity. As Sam Barsanti described the game in a recent article, the goose is “a huge asshole” that runs around doing stuff like tossing people’s “clothes into a fountain when they’re not looking” or honking “to scare them into dropping and breaking glassware.” Much like a real goose, the malevolent digital bird is a stubborn, nefarious force of chaos.
The internet, of course, appreciates this sort of attitude and quickly embraced the meme potential of a mean goose, its unblinking marble-black eyes peering out at a world totally unprepared to reckon with its horrible actions.
As with all memes, subgenres have already begun to crop up that edit the bird into all kinds of situations. In some instances, for example, the goose is inserted into popular video games as a diabolical villainous force.
Another even more specific subsection of this category stays within the realm of games to imagine the dread possibility of the goose achieving even greater power than it already wields with beak, feathers, and ingenuity alone.