One of the more interesting parts of the Hollow Knight Silksong saga was how the long wait leading up to its release pushed a fandom into 'silksanity', fuelling years worth of absurd memes and inside jokes that ran very deep. It seems the bug's now caught onto Kingdom Hearts 4 hopefuls who have only gotten nuggets of news in the three years since its first proper reveal.
It all started when Hollow Knight Silksong's September 4th release date was made official and a threatening post claimed the Kingdom Hearts subreddit was next. Since then, the online community has sort of devolved into sometimes nonsensical, silkpost-shaped copium.
Kingdom Hearts IV from r/KingdomHearts
The most prevalent posts, for some reason, are the random Genie memes, also silkpost-shaped in how they're hilariously photoshopped to appear official. All over the subreddit, people are inserting the Genie from Aladdin into actual Kingdom Hearts screenshots and artwork where he doesn't normally appear, while commenters gleefully play along. Feast your eyes.
I love the way the main four were dripped out for Halloween town in GH1 from r/KingdomHearts
Been stuck on Luxord. Hate when he turns me into dice from r/KingdomHearts
Still one of the coolest bosses in the series from r/KingdomHearts
Thing is, Kingdom Hearts 4 was only announced a mere three years ago compared to the Silkposters' six-year wait, so why all the fuss? Well, for one, Kingdom Hearts 3 also came out six years ago and ended on a giant cliffhanger, all but confirming a sequel before Square Enix ever needed to. Plus, Kingdom Hearts 3 itself was 14 years in the making, so maybe the community's simply expecting to strap in for a long ride.
In its defense, Square Enix finally ended the Kingdom Hearts 4 news drought just earlier this summer with a series of in-development screenshots that revealed a playable Mickey Mouse and a new Keyblade for Sora. The fandom had to deal with vague updates from series steward Tetsuya Nomura and re-releases of re-releases to get there, though.
