On January 18 2020, the Facebook page “GeekDup Girl” shared the following screenshot. Its first portion of which purportedly involved a tweet from Nintendo of America showing “Mushroom Kingdom” urinals planned for a theme park called Super Nintendo World:
Although the Twitter handle was cut off, a displayed name read “Nintendo of America.” Also visible was a date of December 29 2019, and the following text:
What’s this? A sneak peek at the bathrooms of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios parks! Feel even more immersed in the Mushroom Kingdom as you water these thirsty piranha plants.
Part of why the purported tweet was popular and widely shared was perhaps the unusual subject matter and phrasing about Nintendo-themed urinals. Super Nintendo World was an actual planned project as of January 2020:
Super Nintendo World is an upcoming theme park area under construction at Universal Studios Japan and later at Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Hollywood, and Universal Studios Florida that is based on notable video game franchises from Nintendo, such as Super Mario. Construction began in June 2017 and is planned to open in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
The same screenshot and comic was shared to Imgur on January 18 2020:
However, no tweets on Nintendo of America’s Twitter timeline matched the tweet in the screenshot. A reverse image search showed the picture’s first crawled appearance was in January 2015 — two years prior to the start of construction on Super Nintendo World:
It was also shared to Reddit’s r/gaming in 2018:
We searched the tweet’s text on Twitter, and did get a hit for a tweet matching the one in the screenshot:
A biography for that Twitter handle — @NintendoAmorica — read:
Welcome to the FAKE Nintendo profile for gaming news! We’re listening, too.
It wasn’t clear whether the “Mushroom Kingdom” urinal photograph depicted actual plumbing or a creative piece of fan art, but a screenshot of the tweet misleadingly suggested the image originated with the official verified Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) account. It actually was shared by a parody account, and the 2015 (or earlier) image came long before construction on Super Nintendo World, which began in 2017 and about which legitimate stories appeared in January 2020, driving interest in the purportedly thirsty urinals.