Boxxy is the on-camera character played by Catie Wayne, a teenage YouTuber whose hyperactive eyeliner-heavy videos went viral through 4chan in January 2009[1].

Where did Boxxy come from?

Catie Wayne built the character on the anime themed social network Gaia Online and posted her first video to YouTube, where it stayed unwatched until it was shared on I-Am-Bored around Christmas 2008[1].

What does Boxxy mean?

Boxxy is just the screen name Wayne chose for the character, not a word with a separate meaning[1].

How do you use Boxxy?

Boxxy is not a swappable template. She works as a reference to the actual 2009 videos and the 4chan war around them rather than as a format you make your own version of[1].

Is Boxxy still popular?

Boxxy is treated as a classic 2009-era meme today rather than an active format, though Wayne has come back to camera in later years including a 2011 video covered by The Mary Sue[4].

Who is Boxxy in real life?

Catie Wayne, an American teenager at the time she filmed the original videos[1].

Why did 4chan care about Boxxy so much?

Her rapid-fire delivery split /b/ into obsessive fan and hater camps that flooded the board with Boxxy posts for weeks, to the point where unrelated threads got drowned in it[1].

The Center for Boxxy Control and Restriction, a twelve-person IRC group of 4chan users that hacked her YouTube account and posted her personal details before eventually restoring the videos and apologizing[3].

Did Boxxy come back after 2009?

Yes. She posted follow-up videos in later years, including a 2011 clip covered by The Mary Sue in which she addressed rumors of another account hack[4].

What was the #boxxy Twitter bomb?

A coordinated 4chan push in May 2009 to force the #boxxy hashtag onto Twitter's trending topics, reported by CNET as an early test of hashtag manipulation by Anonymous[2].

How divisive was Boxxy really?

Urban Dictionary entries from the era called her both 'the only hope for mankind' and someone who could bring the internet 'to its knees,' which captures how far apart the two camps were[6].

Boxxy

2009viral videoclassic

Boxxy is the online character created by American teenager Catie Wayne, whose hyperactive eyeliner-heavy webcam videos triggered a civil war on 4chan's /b/ board in January 2009 and became one of the earliest cases of a YouTube personality making mainstream press through imageboard chaos.

accidental fame memes 4chan memes late 2000s memes youtube culture memes unwilling celebrity memes

Overview

Boxxy is the on-camera character played by Catie Wayne, a teenage American YouTuber who filmed herself with heavy black eyeliner, wide eyes, and a rapid-fire delivery1. The persona rambled about kittens, hair, fingernails, and inside jokes at breakneck speed, saying 'um' between almost every thought4. Fans found her hypnotic and adorable while haters found her insufferable, and that hard split is what turned her into a meme rather than just another webcam upload1.

Wayne kept up the character across multiple YouTube channels for several years, and by the early 2010s her boxxybabee account had built up more than 25 million views entirely off the strength of the original 2009 run and its aftermath3.

How It Spread

On /b/ the video split users into two camps that spent weeks either worshiping Boxxy or trying to shout her off the site, and every unrelated thread threatened to spill into Boxxy spam1. Twelve users met in an IRC channel and formed the Center for Boxxy Control and Restriction (CBCR), which broke into her YouTube account, hid her videos, posted her personal information along with a warning that she should never film again, and only reversed course after wider backlash forced them to restore everything and post a video apology3.

The Guardian ran a long feature during the same weeks, treating the /b/ civil war as a real news story about internet subcultures and giving the fight visibility well outside 4chan1. In May 2009, 4chan users organized a coordinated push to force the #boxxy hashtag onto Twitter's trending topics, which CNET covered as part of Anonymous's growing habit of gaming public platforms2. BuzzFeed also picked up a later comeback video under the headline 'Boxxy Is Back'5.

Wayne kept releasing occasional videos in the years after the initial explosion. The Mary Sue covered a 2011 return in which she addressed rumors that her account had been hacked while still babbling in-character about her hair, her fingernails, kitties, and planes4.

How to Use This Meme

Boxxy is not a template format you can remix. Her fame ran on her specific webcam persona and the argument around it, so 'using' Boxxy typically means quoting her cadence, referencing the CBCR raid, or invoking her as shorthand for the moment 4chan lost its mind over a single teenage girl on YouTube1.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (6)

Boxxy

2009viral videoclassic

accidental fame memes 4chan memes late 2000s memes youtube culture memes unwilling celebrity memes