Shadow the Hedgehog went to Claire’s and inspired a new meme trend

polygon.com:

Shadow is the brooding anti-hero of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Created in a lab, the poor guy is just trying to understand his place in the world. Maybe some fresh accessories would help? This idea charmed a lot of fans after a meme of Shadow entering a Claire’s went viral — inspiring a trend where fans draw Sonic characters doing some big-box store shopping of their own.

The format generally works along these lines: Fans draw a Sonic character entering a chain store and place that illustration over a photo of the actual establishment. The trend was started by digital artist Amasc0met when they tweeted the image on April 29. Since then, people have remixed the meme with different Sonic characters, like Knuckles and Tails, going to mall stores and emerging with new accessories.

Shadow the hedgehog walking into claire’s pic.twitter.com/Y8TQlGTVrd

“Nothing specific inspired the art, I simply just wanted to draw him going to Claire’s,” Amasc0met said to Polygon via Twitter. “It was a self indulgent silly little thing.” After it took off, they redrew the meme with Shadow exiting wearing a rainbow plastic bracelet along with a heart shaped shades. (But did he get his ears pierced? Maybe next time.)

Update: shadow the hedgehog has emerged from the claire’s pic.twitter.com/bzqBhy09wa

The meme has inspired dozens of spinoffs. Here’s Sonic running (not walking!) into the clothing store Hot Topic.

Sonic the hedgehog walking into hot topic pic.twitter.com/CLnnW9VyXL

Here he is emerging from the store. It looks like he’s changed into some Vans, got some striped fingerless gloves over his normal gloves, and painted the eyeliner on thick. He would make any scene kid jealous!

Update: sonic the hedgehog returns an hour later from