Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead has become one of the most notable poses for Vault Boy, who stands with a reassuring thumbs up throughout the Fallout franchise, becoming the brand’s mascot both in-game and out-of-game. That charismatic pose became monumental to both the series and the gaming community follow its use majorly in Fallout 4.
Vault Boy began appearing in the Fallout universe in Vault-Tec Corporation’s training manuals and advertisements as its official mascot. Over time, however, Vault Boy became a mascot for the games themselves, representing the player character in a satirically happy, cartoonish fashion, if particularly in Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead. In more recent Fallout games such as New Vegas and Fallout 4, Vault Boy animations are used to represent stats, skills, and achievements in a style reminiscent of rubber hose caricatures.
Some fans felt that, as the Fallout series progressed, Vault Boy’s use as a mascot became “oversaturated,” popping up with that signature pose with Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead wherever possible. It’s true; as the franchise grew in popularity over time, Bethesda began exploiting his use because video game franchises with specific mascots tend to correlate with games that perform well. And the gaming community on the intent certainly latched on to him in many ways.
Vault Boy memes began surfacing online, showing off the thumbs-up given by Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead. He’s most often seen this way on the internet, with one eye closed and a large smile with a thumbs-up signal out in front of him. Because Vault Boy is a mascot for Vault-Tec’s training and safety manuals, a rumor went around that this was a measure taken for disaster preparation. Supposedly, in nuclear war-threatened times, people were to stick out their thumb in front of a mushroom cloud to measure its size. If the mushroom cloud was bigger, that meant that person was in the blast zone. If not, they were in the clear.
However, this rumor has been debunked by developers involved with Fallout projects as well as scientists who studied the logistics behind the thumb tests. Vault Boy’s thumbs-up has nothing to do with measuring a mushroom cloud but is meant to be a literal thumbs-up. He’s reassuring citizens, saying “it’s fine,” when in reality, nothing is fine at all. It’s an attempt at a charisma check on players and characters in-game, befitting of Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead. Though ZeniMax and Bethesda now mainly use Vault Boy as a marketing tool, he was originally created as a satirical symbol of Vault-Tec’s tone during the nuclear bombing.
Following the popularity of the thumbs-up Vault Boy’s supposed hidden meaning, Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead became a general meme used by the gaming community online. The memes were especially birthed out of the Vault Boy animation sequences portrayed in fictional training videos. Some of the most popular and obscene ones come out of the retro “Agility” perk instructional video in Fallout 4 by Vault-Tec, where the “hold up” meme was somehow screenshotted from a quick frame and blew up in 2018.
He became valuable to the internet’s comedic economy because his smiling when everything isn’t quite alright was so relatable, much like the dog drinking coffee in the burning house meme. The ironic part of Vault Boy’s evolution is that this is what he was created for in the first place: to emit satire amidst a crisis. But Bethesda likely didn’t plan for him to transcend that emotion to the real world, and no one saw it coming from Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead.
Despite the slight criticism of his overuse from some fans, many called for Vault Boy to be added to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. Demanding a character from another franchise be added to Smash has become a meme in of itself, but players were pleasantly surprised when Nintendo obliged. Though not his own fully-released character, Vault Boy became a playable character in Smash in the form of a Mii Fighter costume, specifically the Gunner type.
Vault Boy’s Smash design follows the same concept of the Bobbleheads, but unfortunately, because its base is a Mii Fighter, he doesn’t have a unique post like Fallout 4‘s Charisma Bobblehead thumbs up. Following this, many gamers believed this to be a hint that Bethesda has plants to port a Fallout game (other than Shelter) to the Switch sometime in the future, which isn’t impossible considering DOOM and Skyrim have already been ported.
Fallout 76 is playable on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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