Pikachu Man

About

Pikachu Man, also known as Creepy Pikachu Man Tumblr Ad or Tumblrchu, is an image of a man wearing simple Pikachu cosplay and adjusting his glasses, worn over a human-looking Pikachu mask with a yellow morphsuit. The image was uploaded to the stock photography website Envato Elements in 2021 and went viral on Tumblr in June 2022 after it appeared on an ad for the website, inspiring fan art and memes using the photo as an exploitable format, many users finding the costume creepy.

Origin

On October 15th, 2021, user twenty20photos uploaded an image to Envato Elements^[1] showing a man wearing simple Pikachu cosplay, comprising a yellow morphsuit and a yellow plastic mask resembling a human-looking Pikachu, adjusting his glasses worn over the mask (shown below).

On April 25th, 2022, Tumblr^[2] used the image in an on-site advertisement, captioned, "where your interests connect you to your people," gaining over 62,800 notes in two months (shown below).

Spread

Tumblr users took notice of the ad and began posting artwork and memes referencing it, often asking Tumblr to stop showing them the ad and calling the cosplay creepy. On June 14th, 2022, Tumblr^[3] user angelhannah posted artwork showing Pikachu man sharking a soda with a Manscaped razor, gaining over 4,600 notes in two days (shown below, left). On the same day, Tumblr^[4] user frogaroni posted a meme drawing Surprised Pikachu as the man, gaining over 1,700 notes in two days (shown below, right).

Also on June 14th, Tumblr^[5] user sadly-im-not-jared-19 posted a piece of artwork depicting the man in a pose, gaining over 970 notes in two days (shown below).

On the same day, Tumblr^[6] user phantomoftheparadise0002 posted an I Fear No Man meme using the image, gaining over 1,300 notes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References