What is Fanart Retweet / Please Retweet?

It's a 2017 Polygon YouTube series where producer Patrick Gill tried to get Nintendo of America's Twitter account to retweet his drawing of Toad wearing a diaper.

Where did Fanart Retweet come from?

Patrick Gill created the series and uploaded the first episode to Polygon's YouTube channel on April 10, 2017.

What does Fanart Retweet mean?

The joke is about the absurdity of persistently asking a major corporation to publicly endorse weird fan art of one of their characters.

How do you use Fanart Retweet?

The meme was mostly participatory: fans made their own Diaper Toad art and tagged Nintendo, joining in on Gill's campaign.

Is Fanart Retweet still popular?

No. The meme was specific to the 2017 series and Nintendo's response, and activity around it dropped off after the campaign concluded.

Did Nintendo ever retweet the Diaper Toad?

No. Nintendo acknowledged the campaign on May 15, 2017 with a joke referencing the original Toad, but never actually hit the retweet button.

Who drew the original Diaper Toad?

Patrick Gill, a video producer at Polygon, created the original image for the series.

Was Fanart Retweet covered on TV?

Yes. The Diaper Toad fan art was mentioned on the June 15, 2017 episode of Comedy Central's @Midnight.

Fanart Retweet

2017Web series / social media campaigndead

Published March 10, 2026 · Updated March 18, 2026

Also known as: Please Retweet · Diaper Toad

Fanart Retweet, better known as "Please Retweet," is a 2017 web series by Polygon video producer Patrick Gill in which he repeatedly tried to get the official Nintendo of America Twitter account to retweet fan art of the Super Mario character Toad wearing a diaper. The campaign spawned its own wave of fan art, a custom Amiibo, and a cheeky official response from Nintendo.

nintendo memes fan art memes brand participation memes absurdist humor memes youtube viral

Overview

The premise was simple and absurd: Patrick Gill, a video producer at Polygon, drew Toad from Super Mario wearing a diaper and then dedicated an entire video series to getting Nintendo of America's official Twitter account to retweet it2. Each episode explored a different strategy for convincing the brand account to engage with this deeply cursed piece of fan art. The humor came from the contrast between the professional, corporate nature of Nintendo's social media presence and the sheer weirdness of the request.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube (Polygon), Twitter

Creator

Patrick Gill

Date

2017

On April 10, 2017, Gill uploaded the first episode of "Please Retweet" to Polygon's YouTube channel2. The series format had Gill trying various tactics to coax a retweet out of the @NintendoAmerica Twitter account, all centered on his original drawing of Toad in a diaper. The first video picked up over 66,000 views, and the accompanying tweet pulled in more than 2,100 retweets and 3,200 likes2.

How It Spread

The Diaper Toad image took on a life of its own beyond Gill's videos. On June 10, 2017, artist @marcoscrislop posted his own fan art rendition of the diapered Toad on Twitter, which blew up to over 42,000 retweets and 59,000 likes2. Custom Amiibo artist @MissGandaKris built a physical Amiibo version of the character, earning over 730 retweets and 2,500 likes2. A Twitter Moment dedicated to the Toad collected more than 1,300 likes2.

The series hit a turning point on May 15, 2017, when Gill uploaded the sixth episode, attempting to use humor to win Nintendo over2. That same day, Nintendo of America's Twitter account responded with a joke that referenced the campaign alongside an image of the original Toad character, acknowledging the bit without actually retweeting the image2. Nintendo's reply pulled in over 9,800 retweets and 10,000 likes, dwarfing the original tweet's numbers2.

The Diaper Toad fan art also crossed into traditional media when it was mentioned on the June 15, 2017 episode of Comedy Central's game show @Midnight2.

Platforms

TwitterTwitterReddit

Timeline

2023-01-15

First appears

2023-06-01

Goes viral

2024-01-01

Continues in use

2025-01-01

Fanart Retweet is still actively used and shared across platforms

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The meme format itself is less of a reusable template and more of a specific cultural moment. The broader joke, trying to get a corporate social media account to engage with bizarre fan art, inspired similar stunts on Twitter. People would tag brand accounts with intentionally weird art or requests, echoing Gill's persistence.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Nintendo's decision to acknowledge the campaign without actually retweeting it became a small case study in how corporate social media accounts handle persistent fan engagement. The response threaded the needle between ignoring the bit entirely and fully endorsing a drawing of one of their characters in a diaper. The @Midnight mention on Comedy Central showed the joke had legs beyond internet-native audiences2.