Mewgenics co-creator Edmund McMillen has discussed how he drew up the list of the personalities approached to provide the game's numerous cameos, saying that while he "understands we live in a time where a meow from someone who has different beliefs as you is scary and frustrating, confusing and controversial... it felt interesting, so I decided to explore it."
In an interview with RPS, following criticisms that the cameo cast included individuals perceived by some to have controversial views, McMillen said the game's meow roster represented people from across the ideological spectrum, including people — such as Ethan Klein — who had not publicly commented on his views of the Gaza conflicts at the time he was asked to contribute. "When we added most of the people on the list it was ages ago, like, Ethan was included a good four years back," McMillen explained.
"I wanted the game to feature a huge array of iconic voices I’ve been hearing echoing across the internet for most of my time making games. As some probably noticed, I was all over the place when it came to cameos and did my best to include and keep ones that clashed or kinda counterbalanced each other. The inclusion of Ethan and Hila [Klein] was counter balanced by iDubbbz and Anisa," he added, referring to two creators who have publicly supported Palestine.
"I made sure to contact both to make sure they were okay with the others' involvement so it didn’t feel like a weird gotcha on release," McMillen explained. "They were both very adult about it and said they had no issue with the other being added, and I really respected that, since I know they have been publicly feuding for a while now. It’s hard to explain without revealing aspects of the game people haven’t really experienced yet, but the inclusion of people with clashing ideologies felt appropriate."
McMillen concluded: "I understand we live in a time where a meow from someone who has different beliefs as you is scary and frustrating, confusing and controversial… but it felt interesting, so I decided to explore it. Also, I should probably point out that I don’t share the same opinions as, well, probably any of the people we included.
"If I only included people who share the same exact opinions as me, I’d be the only one meowing in the game. I included Chris, but also liquid Chris (those who know, know)... I didn’t [realize] Matan [Evan, an Israeli-American YouTuber] was controversial, I mean a lot of these people are characters doing bits."
Other notable inclusions on the list of vocal performers include Stranger Things star David Harbour and Supernatural's Felicia Day.
he is now posting about chris chan
The wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke
to balance out a literal IOF member who went on raids, we put the guy in a green suit who says "I'm gay"
Look he said he was sorry about doing that, which makes him as equally bad as a coked up dad who gives his kids ringworms because he won't pick up dogshit from the animal he didn't potty train
Should've been Hasan and some other youtuber if that was what he wanted to do. Idubbbz? Lmao.
I do understand the "get people from across my time on the internet" but then I would much rather have gone for people that aren't "known" like other newgrounds developers, or people that are forgotten - I don't know if he has cameos from Ray William Johnson or Nikahika or whatever, but that would make much more sense for what he describes.
And if you wanna go the edgy direction why not have people like boogie1488 or Shoenice? Something that's actually provocative.
I don't know the full list of cameos but I'm pretty sure there's gotta be some number of people who have similar politics to Hasan just because it's a huge list. I know Northernlion is on the list and he recently did a fundraiser stream for people protesting ICE with HCJustin who's a communist (and they stream together all the time).