“If the Yugoslavian communist leader Tito had Twitter, how would he have used it? Would he have been as sophisticated using social media as he was in the propaganda techniques of his own time? This is the playful premise of Twitto, a game that invites visitors to put themselves in the shoes of an autocratic dictator and learn about propaganda through building their very own cult of personality. Exploring the historical exhibitions of the Museum of Yugoslavia, visitors are invited to create their own manifestos, posters, autobiographies, and other items of propaganda for whichever cause they choose to make their own—be it “Death to capitalism,” “girl power,” or “pineapple on pizzas.”

Museum role-play game

Twitto can be described as a single-player role-playing game, in which the player is cast in the role of a resistance leader and eventually dictator. Going through the museum, the player may scan stickers with Artcodes posted next to artefacts of particular significance in the story (or myth) of Tito (see Figure3). The Artcodes were designed to resemble insignia on partisan uniforms from Tito’s rebel army during World War II. Scanning a sticker would open a new “chapter” in the game, starting with a few short sentences presenting one period of time in Tito’s life and the significance of the scanned artefact. After this, the player is prompted to put themselves in Tito’s shoes, e.g.: If you were apolitical resistance leader, what would your party be called? What would your propaganda poster look like? For each “chapter” in Tito’s biography, the player is tasked with answering a series of prompts. The input is fitted into a predesigned template, resulting in the player assembling a propaganda item—a poster, party manifesto, book cover, and so on. Thus, the game offered a series of creative challenges to the player, framed to fit into a propaganda format that was intended to facilitate both light-hearted play as well as critical reflection on the nature of propaganda both in the history of communist-era Yugoslavia and today.