With purple hair and a choker, Amelia doesn’t look like a right-wing figure at first glance.image: screenshot x
She was supposed to warn against extremism – now the right is celebrating her as a meme star. How a state prevention figure became an AI icon of hate speech.
02/01/2026, 10:10 p.m02/01/2026, 10:10 p.m
Kathrin Martens / watson.de
She wears a purple bob, looks like an indie heroine from a coming-of-age film – and is currently one of the most popular figures on the online right. Amelia, a fictional British teenager, has been shared millions of times as a meme for weeks. The problem: It actually exists to prevent extremism.
Countless memes and AI videos are circulating on platforms like X in which Amelia spreads right-wing, often openly racist slogans. She celebrates “British culture,” drinks beer in the pub, reads Harry Potter – and at the same time agitates against migrants or poses in uniforms to glorify deportations. Even well-known figures on the British right have taken up the memes.
Amelia originally comes from a completely different context. The character was developed two years ago for a video game that is part of the government’s prevention program “Prevent,” reports CNN. Their goal is actually to educate young people about the dangers of online radicalization.
Amelia: From warning signal to right-wing idol
In the educational game “Pathways: Navigating Gaming, the Internet & Extremism,” Amelia appears as a character who tries to radicalize other young people with disinformation and anti-migrant statements. A chilling example that young people should use to learn to recognize radical ideas.
There are several reasons why Amelia has now become a right-wing meme icon. Experts say it “ticks a lot of boxes”. White, attractive, female – and with exactly the views that parts of the extreme right share. What is particularly striking is that many of the memes are highly sexualized, while the same accounts generally portray migrants as a sexual threat.
There is also political propaganda. After a conservative media portrayed the game as an alleged “re-education” of young people, right-wing broadcasters picked up the story – sometimes with false claims. This fueled the debate and the memes literally exploded. Even Elon Musk shared content, and there are now even cryptocurrencies that bear Amelia’s name.
AI Amelia is used for ICE propaganda
There are now also memes and videos that portray Amelia as supporting ICE, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. ICE is currently under great criticism due to its unscrupulous actions against supposedly illegal migrants in the USA, as well as two deaths of US citizens for which the agency is responsible.
In a video shared on X, Amelia is seen throwing a tomato at Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Then she says: “When I am Prime Minister, I will bring ICE to Great Britain.” She can be seen in a uniform, her badge says “ICE UK Division”. Numerous ICE agents are walking behind her.
She continues: “We will expel all illegal immigrants. No exception.” In the next scene she can be seen wearing a construction helmet and safety vest, behind her a building with the sign “Migrants Hotel” is being demolished. Also on their agenda: no more marriages between first cousins, no more waiting times in hospitals, safety on the streets at night.
She – or rather whoever generated this content – serves as many of the right’s agenda points as possible in one video. “When Amelia is in town, there will be no trouble,” she concludes her speech. Also a promise from the right: Everything will get better with us.
Why memes can be so dangerous
Memes often work with irony and false ground. That’s exactly what makes them so effective. They can be defended as a “joke” – even if they clearly convey racist content. Experts speak loudly CNN of “plausible deniability”.
Thanks to AI, such content can now be produced en masse and in a very short space of time and distributed internationally. The characters seem authentic, trustworthy, almost real. Studies show that many users believe this content to be real, especially if they do not know that it is AI-generated images.
Ironically, Amelia has become a prime example of exactly what the game was supposed to warn about: how easily young, seemingly harmless characters can be exploited for extremist propaganda.
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Video: external