Just two days ago Alexandria Ocasio Cortez had never played Among Us, the viral space-age murder mystery game, and now she’s streaming on Twitch to over 400,000 people with the help of activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning and left-wing vlogger and gamer Hasan Piker.
If you haven’t played it, Among Us is essentially Cluedo in space acted out by tiny coloured blobs. Lobbies of up to ten players are placed on a spaceship, one of them is a killer (the impostor) and the rest have to find out who. The impostor has in-game privileges – they can slip into the ship’s air vents to avoid detection, useful if you’ve just murdered someone and you need a quick escape – while crewmates run around the ship performing tasks, such as repairing electrics or shooting asteroids out of the ship’s flight path.
Impostors can be caught red-handed in the act of killing or they can reveal their identity by acting suspiciously (sus). Each time a body is found the lobby is placed in a chatroom and players can vote off who they think is the murderer.
With the US election just around the corner, AOC decided to jump in on the game to try and win voter support, enlisting the help of Chelsea manning and left-wing gamer Hasan Piker. Also joining the all-star cast were Twitch streamer and Youtuber Pokamine and Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
“It was such a blast,” Omar said on Twitter. “Super grateful to @AOC @hasanthehun and all the amazing gamers for a fun night. Poggers (am I using that right?). S/o to @isaiah_kb for my set up. Follow us on twitch, I will be back”.
American singer-songwriter Maia also got in on the action, with a clip of her being brutally murdered by AOC in the spaceship's electrical room going viral on TikTok. “AOC killed me, AOC killed me!” she screams in the clip, adding “I'm gonna pass away. Queen, thank you so much, thank you!”
With just under two weeks until US voters go to the ballot box to choose their next President, we’d like to add: orange sus, vote him out. You can watch AOC’s debut on Among Us here or catch the highlights below: