Goku Mondongo

About

Goku Mondongo refers to an image macro of Goku from Dragon Ball in which he is bald, paired with the overlay text "Mondongo." The meme started in 2020 and became popularized in April 2021 thanks to the followers of KNekro, a Spanish streamer.

Origin

On April 8th, 2020, a Facebook^[1] profile picture was uploaded by user Goku Mondongo, featuring a bald version of the Dragon Ball anime's main character Goku, accompanied the overlay text "Mondongo," the name of a typical dish of slow-cooked vegetable soup that is consumed in various parts of Latin America.^[2] The post garnered 76 likes and 24 shares in three years (seen below).

Spread

On April 26th, 2021, YouTube^[3] user @gok2277 uploaded a video dubbing Goku saying "mondongo," which received 224,492 views and 16,000 likes in two years (seen below).

The video popularized the meme with Latin American social media users and was mainly related to the world of video games, often being used as an image macro and catchphrase when a player makes a mistake in games like Fortnite, Free Fire and Warzone. For example, followers of the Spanish streamer KNekro^[4] use the original video to mock the streamer by repeatedly sending it to him. On March 17th, 2023, KNekro posted a YouTube Short asking his fans to stop sending him videos of the meme, which garnered 92,000 views and 9,300 likes in ten days (seen below).

On TikTok,^[5] audios of Goku saying mondongo are used in memes like the one posted by @ybrandon_ on November 4th, 2022. The video (below, left) garnered 5.9 million plays and 946,400 likes in a year. Another example, posted by TikTok^[6] user @zenitsu._edits2 on October 3rd, 2022 features a parody song sung by Goku and Vegeta about mondongo. The video (below, right) received 1.4 million plays and 218,400 likes in a year.

Search Interest

Various Examples

External References