El Wiwi

Confirmed 68,979

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About

El Wiwi, also known as Mini Michi, refers to a tiny clay sculpture of a cat made by Japanese artist Kakuho Fujii that was posted to Instagram in 2018. In 2019, the cat was used in a popular Spanish image macro, where it became known as "Mini Michi." By 2021, the image became the subject of memes again, including photoshops, image macros and video edits, eventually getting the name "El Wiwi" by English web users.

Origin

On February 22nd, 2018, Japanese artist Kakuho Fujii, who makes tiny sculptures out of clay, posted a photo of a cat they had recently finished on Instagram,^[1] garnering over 200 likes in three years (shown below).

Mini Michi

On September 12th, 2019, Facebook^[4] user Kalemia posted the image of Fujii's cat with the caption, "Has sido bendecido por el mini Michi, no lo ignores," which translates to, "You’ve been blessed by mini Michi, don’t ignore him." The post garnered over 2,400 reactions and 300 shares in the same span of time (shown below). "Michi" is the Spanish equivalent to "kitty."^[3]

On the same day, Tumblr^[2] user cat-memes-only posted the same image along with the caption in English, garnering over 28,600 notes in roughly two years (shown below).

Kalemia's post was screenshotted and shared by a number of Spanish Facebook and Instagram pages over the course of the next two years. Notably, on that day, Spanish Facebook^[6]^[7] meme pages Memepera and Gatitos que curan tu depresión shared the image, garnering a combined 187,000 shares and 297,000 reactions in two years. On September 29th, Instagram^[5] page @conchetuhumor.cl posted a version of the meme, garnering over 64,000 likes in two years.

El Wiwi

On February 28th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user @robelzonicoposted a link to a now-deleted "official el wiwi" Discord server (shown below), using the image of Fujii's cat as the header, resulting in a number of memes based on the small cat. The link was shared a number of times that day by other users, with many joining the Discord. Although the links are now dead, there are a number of tweets from February 28th discussing the Discord and sharing the memes from it (examples shown below, left and right).

On the same day, Tumblr^[9] user vraska-theunseen posted the image of Fujii's cat with the simple caption "el wiwi," garnering over 360 notes in two months.

Spread

On March 1st, 2021, El Defoma^[10] published an article about the El Wiwi link and Discord server and shared a number of memes from the server (examples shown below) which is noted to have had over 1,000 members as of that day.

The memes became particularly popular on Instagram over the course of the month. For example, on March 5th, Instagram^[11] user @sad_catto_hours posted a photoshop of El Wiwi with another tiny cat, garnering over 40,000 likes in a month (shown below, left). On March 15th, Instagram^[12] user @rartcattos posted a new photoshop in which Wiwi has a family, garnering over 40,000 likes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On March 29th, YouTuber^[13] FS Smash posted a Friday Night Funkin' tutorial edit in which Le Wiwi teaches the cat in a towel from the Chinese Man Yelling at a Kitten video to rap, garnering over 2.7 million views in two weeks (shown below).

On April 15th, YouTuber^[14] Lessons In Meme Culture released a video on El Wiwi, garnering over 100,000 views in under a day (shown below, left). On the same day, YouTuber^[15] Peternity uploaded an animated version of the original photo, garnering over 7,200 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

Kakuho Fujii Disapproves Of El Wiwi

On April 15th, 2021, the artist behind the sculpture, Kakuho Fujii, made a post to Instagram^[16] (shown below) expressing their sadness over the sculpture becoming a meme, reading, "I am in great trouble because the this work have been repeatedly reprinted and used without permission overseas. And, this cat is called "el wiwi", I haven't named it. This makes me very sad. Please do not use or upload my photos and Image processing without permission."

Continued Spread

On April 19th, 2021, YouTuber^[17] BENBROS posted an original monkey-themed animation featuring a tragic love story between an ape and El Wiwi, garnering over 48,000 views in a day (shown below).