Google Play Posts Bizarre Sonic Tribute, Leading Even Sega to Ask 'What Are You Doing'

Google Play recently decided to pay tribute to Sonic the Hedgehog on social media. Reasonable, given that the famous mascot is currently having a bit of a cultural moment. The only problem? Most of it was completely wrong.

Over the weekend, Google Play’s X/Twitter account took it upon itself to make an impromptu Sonic The Hedgehog appreciation thread where the chili dog-eating hero gets older the more you scroll through it. But the Google Play’s scrapbook-esque thread's dabbling in historical revisionism of the blue hedgehog would spark a wave of corrections, even prompting Sega's own social media account to ask what was on every Sonic fan’s mind: What are you doing?

Google Play’s Sonic-themed thread, which sporadically covers the blue blur’s evolution from 1991 to 2022, is now riddled with community notes criticizing the social media account for its litany of factual errors.

1991 Sonic. The cover? Rotund. Husky. Still fast as lightning. The actual game? 8-bit GLORY 🙌 pic.twitter.com/a2k2j9mvXH

— Google Play (@GooglePlay) April 27, 2024

For instance, Google’s first threaded post of Sonic and Tails in 1991 is actually of Sonic’s 2013 mobile game. The key signifier of this error on Google Plays part is the fact that Tails isn’t Sonic’s companion in the original game. The post also refers to the original Sonic the Hedgehog as "8-bit glory" despite first releasing on the 16-bit Sega Genesis. And that's just the beginning.

what are you doing

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) April 28, 2024

Other blatant errors in Google Play’s thread include a screenshot of Sonic from 2014’s Sonic Boom cartoon saying this was the “short king” in 1993; a 2022 screenshot of Paramount Picture’s live-action Sonic that was actually from the 2020 movie, and a 2006 Sonic image from the 2017 mobile game Sonic Forces Mobile —which is available on the Google Play store.

Fans went so far as to wonder if AI was used to create the strange thread, not the least because one of the images is poorly altered to remove background characters.

2022 Sonic. Just like us, he’s healed from 2020 but isn’t quite the same 😆 pic.twitter.com/f9XYSeLtxm

— Google Play (@GooglePlay) April 27, 2024

While the endgame of Google Play’s Sonic thread remains a mystery, what isn’t is the fact that Sonic fans are treating it like material for Twitter's version of a comedy club's open mic night with a sea of hilarious memes at Google Play’s expense. Here's one of our favorites.

We all know who's behind this https://t.co/CMgSvvd31X pic.twitter.com/1qpmQu6RRc

— Artvader || Commission Season (@Artvader_AF) April 29, 2024

All in all, it was a strange moment for Sega's biggest franchise, which is otherwise celebrating the release of the Knuckles TV series on Paramount+. We called it a "fun, chaotic bonus level that nails everything that made the Sonic movies great, earning a well-deserved fist bump," and is one more step along the path toward a potential Sonic Cinematic Universe.

In the meantime, the third Sonic the Hedgehog film, starring Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog, hits theaters on December 20, 2024.

Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer at IGN.