Despite her ridiculous popularity, Mary-Belle Kirschner, more commonly known as Belle Delphine, is somewhat of an internet enigma. Her fans seem to largely flock from the gaming community – but is Belle Delphine even a gamer herself?
Her rise to fame is largely disconnected from the gaming scene. The UK model began to gain followers by creating an Instagram account, eventually posting photos and short videos of herself sticking out her tongue and rolling her eyes back, imitating “ahegao” faces which are common in Japanese erotic manga. Most would agree that her suggestive facial expressions and risque photos are what drove her initial growth in popularity.
She has since branched out into creating a few popular YouTube videos, an adult Patreon account, and a merchandise store; A subreddit was created for her as well, which quickly exploded in popularity. Belle has also steadily remained relevant through various stunts, most recently her supposed drama with the law – but why do gamers even know who she is?
Her most obvious connections to gaming stem from two factors; She has famously cosplayed as D. Va from Overwatch (we won’t talk about her Bowsette cosplay), and she has marketed and sold “GamerGirl Bath Water.” Considering she isn’t really known for playing video games – her bath water merchandise is more of a meme than anything else – and her cosplay seems to fall more in-line with her modeling status (she definitely isn’t known for playing Overwatch).
It seems that Belle has managed to successfully market herself as a gamer girl despite providing no evidence that she even owns a console. Sure, she has a scene from her video “Meet my best friend,” where she feigns playing a game of Mario Kart with a deceased octopus with googly-eyes attached to it, but that’s the end of the line regarding “gaming” content. Thus, we can only hope that those who have purchased her bath water have done so ironically (doubtful).
Overall, Belle Delphine has cleverly harmonized with internet culture and consequently slipped into its “in” crowd, but she has done so without revealing too much about the authenticity of her hobbies. She may play some video games in her free time, but she is certainly less of a gamer icon than she is a mastermind internet troll.
