What was intended to be a harmless joke turned into a firestorm, racking up over 50 million views and becoming Chess.com’s most viral post ever.
Chess.com’s social media accounts have nearly nine million followers across all platforms. They aim to promote the game and engage the community. Sometimes, posts take off to a level few could’ve predicted.
On March 14, Chess.com’s account on X/Twitter (with 645,000 followers) posted a light-hearted bishop joke with “accepting new name ideas for this piece.”
accepting new name ideas for this piece:
— Chess.com (@chesscom)
The tweet followed a about renaming the rook. However, while the rook joke flew under the radar for most people, the bishop post exploded. In the five days since the post, it has amassed over 50 million views, making it Chess.com’s most viral tweet ever. In addition, a on the post had more than 67K upvotes and 2,400 comments before the thread was closed.
comes from the piece’s pointed top, resembling a bishop’s miter in Christian tradition. However, the name of the piece varies in different languages. In French, it’s called “fou” (jester), while in Russian, it’s “slon” (elephant), and in Norwegian “løper” (runner).
Among the more than 17,000 comments, many users played along with the joke and offered their suggestions ranging from traditional ones like “elephant,” “runner,” or “priest,” to more creative names such as “truck driver,” “witch,” or even “Bob.”
However, not everyone took it as a joke. Many users perceived the post as an attempt to erase religious history, reacting with outrage.
“Why are you trying to erase the word bishop?” one user asked, while another responded, “That’s a Bishop, how are you calling yourself chess and not knowing that?” and “Why would we throw out hundreds of years of history just because it hurts your feelings?”
Others were more aggressive: “Fire whoever you have in charge of your social media and beg for forgiveness,” one demanded. “No, you are not going to rename the bishop. Not now, not ever. Go woke, go broke, checkmate,” another one responded.
While most responses were harmless, some took a darker turn with outright hateful or antisemitic remarks that cannot be included here.
Meanwhile, others mocked the outrage, finding the backlash over the bishop joke absurd. One comment came from IM , better known as GothamChess, summing it up in a reply: “The responses to this post fully encapsulate what is wrong with this platform and, more generally, the world today.”
If you want to entertain yourself for hours, read the responses to this post. Absolute circus.
— GothamChess (@GothamChess)
A number of videos also covered the outrage, such as popular YouTuber Charles Christopher White Jr, better known as Cr1TiKaL, with 16.6 million subscribers on his channel, .
In a video that has had 1.5 million views so far, he described Chess.com’s tweet as “the greatest chess post of All Time.” He went on to mock the outrage.
“They thought they would just get dumb names. What they got was a catastrophic war-zone, a melt-down with bodies piling down the street all over this engagement-bait post,” he said.
They thought they would just get dumb names. What they got was a catastrophic war-zone, a melt-down with bodies piling down the street all over this engagement-bait post.
He continued: “A lot of the top replies are people fighting to keep the bishop name there, thinking they are serious about changing the name, unable to recognize that it’s a very clear, obivous joke. Even a toddler could pick up on that. It’s bad!”
GothamChess reflected on the reactions in , offering his broader takeaway:
“First of all, social media is a crazy place. Second of all, I think we should calm down a bit. Not everything you see is intended to be an attack on you. The world is in a pretty intense spot right now, and it feels like everybody is just ready to get at each other.”
He added a reminder of what really matters: “In the meantime, you should be ready to learn to play some chess. It’s one of the best things you can enjoy with every generation of your family.”
please stop suggesting “bishop”… silly name.
— Chess.com (@chesscom)
Chief Chess Officer of Chess.com, IM , spoke about the post during on Thursday: “This was obviously a playful joke that went viral in the wrong way in many ways,” he said. “Guess what. We’re going to do it again with the queen or king.”
He noted that Chess.com does not own chess and apologized if anyone was offended or misinterpreted the joke. “It was never meant to be that way. It was a ton of fun and we’re going to continue to have fun and make fun of ourselves.”
