Tomorrow marks the 30th birthday of Super Mario. However, this video isn’t the type of homage you’d expect to be seeing.
It’s not a celebration, it’s a true to life depiction of the current refugee crisis in Europe.
As BBC Trending reports, it was made by a young Syrian man, Samir Al-Mufti (pseudonym), who lives in Istanbul, Turkey. He witnessed many of his friends fleeing for Europe and wants to show the world the life threatening risks people are undertaking in his own way. He told BBC Trending:
Five months ago my best friend drowned in the sea while travelling from Ismir (Turkey) to Greece. The engine on the boat exploded. That’s when I got the idea for the video.
In the video, Mario is now “Refugee Mario” and you see him journey with smugglers across the Mediterranean Sea. He eventually reaches the Hungarian border where the guards catch him and send him to prison.
Refugee Mario is given several chances after various obstacles lead to his death during the journey, unlike the people making that same journey in real life today.
In tech, we spend so much of our time talking about changing the world with hardware and software, when in reality, none of that is really going to change what’s happening in front of us.
What Samir Al-Mufti has done is turn a much-loved medium into a simple, yet truly powerful message that I hope will serve as a wake up call to the tech community.
Next time you die in a Destiny mission, or in Super Mario or any other game, just think of this video and the people who are facing missions of their own. They won’t get a second chance.
➤ Super Mario asylum stage [via BBC Trending]
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.