El Wiwi — Tiny gray cat figurine standing on the tip of a human finger

El Wiwi

2018image macroclassic

Published October 8, 2026

El Wiwi, also called Mini Michi, is a photo of a tiny clay cat sculpture made by Japanese artist Kakuho Fujii in 2018. The image bounced around Spanish-language meme pages for years before an anonymous Twitter user turned it into a chaotic viral format in late February 2021, spawning a short-lived but intense wave of photoshops, YouTube edits and a Discord server with thousands of members.

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Overview

El Wiwi, also known as Mini Michi, is a photograph of a roughly 5mm clay cat sculpted by Japanese miniature artist Kakuho Fujii1. The picture itself is simple, a palm-sized Scottish Fold figurine staring at the camera, but Spanish-speaking meme pages recaptioned it as a blessing you must not ignore, giving it the pet name Mini Michi (Spanish slang for kitty)2.

The format splits in two. The 2019 wave is pure wholesome image macro energy, variations on the line "Has sido bendecido por el mini Michi, no lo ignores" pasted over the original photo2. The 2021 wave, rebranded El Wiwi by English-speaking users, is louder and weirder: photoshops of the cat with a tiny family, Friday Night Funkin' edits, SCP-style parodies and surreal in-jokes seeded through a short-lived Discord server3.

El Wiwi has no punchline on its own. The joke is the cult around it, the insistence that this specific 5mm cat is powerful, mysterious and worthy of elaborate fan content, which is also what later made the actual artist publicly ask people to stop4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram (artwork) / Twitter and Discord (viral spread)
Creator
Kakuho Fujii; meme originators unknown
Date
2018

On February 22nd, 2018, Japanese artist Kakuho Fujii posted a photo of a tiny clay Scottish Fold cat to their Instagram, part of an ongoing series of 5mm miniature sculptures1. The post itself picked up only a couple hundred likes over the following years and had nothing meme-related attached to it.

The meme origin came later. On September 12th, 2019, a Facebook user known as Kalemia reposted Fujii's photo with the Spanish caption "Has sido bendecido por el mini Michi, no lo ignores," meaning "You've been blessed by mini Michi, don't ignore him" (translated from Spanish)3. Spanish meme pages including Memepera and Gatitos que curan tu depresión reshared the image, and an English Tumblr translation by cat-memes-only pushed it past 28,000 notes3. The El Wiwi rebrand came on February 28th, 2021, when Twitter user @robelzonico used Twitter's paid promotion tools to flood timelines with the cat and link to an "official el wiwi" Discord server, which gained thousands of members within hours2.

How It Spread

The February 2021 Twitter push went viral fast. Mexican culture site El Deforma covered the Discord server on March 1st, 2021, noting it already had over a thousand members and that the El Wiwi tweet was spreading through Europe, Latin America and Japan thanks to its promoted-ad distribution trick2. The article described the cryptic recurring tag line "el wiwi mide 2" (El Wiwi measures 2), with no explanation of what the 2 referred to2.

From there the meme jumped to Instagram photoshops. On March 5th, 2021, @sad_catto_hours posted a photoshop pairing El Wiwi with another tiny cat, and on March 15th, @rartcattos posted a family-of-wiwis edit, each pulling around 40,000 likes3. YouTube picked it up on March 29th, 2021, when FS Smash uploaded a Friday Night Funkin' tutorial edit where El Wiwi raps against the cat in a towel from the Chinese Man Yelling at a Kitten video, racking up over 2.7 million views in two weeks5.

Mainstream meme explainer coverage followed on April 15th, 2021, when Lessons In Meme Culture put out a video walkthrough of the trend6, and animator Peternity posted a looped version of the original photo7. The same day, Kakuho Fujii posted their own Instagram statement in English asking users to stop reprinting the sculpture photo, writing that they never named the cat El Wiwi and that the unauthorized use made them very sad4. BENBROS followed on April 19th, 2021, with a tragic ape-and-El-Wiwi love story animation that pulled 48,000 views in a day8.

Timeline

2018-02-22

Kakuho Fujii posts the original 5mm clay cat sculpture photo to Instagram[1].

2019-09-12

Facebook user Kalemia reposts the photo with the "mini Michi" blessing caption, which spreads across Spanish-language meme pages[3].

2021-02-28

Twitter user @robelzonico uses paid promotion to blast the cat across timelines and links to an "official el wiwi" Discord server[2].

2021-03-01

El Deforma publishes a Spanish-language explainer on the El Wiwi Discord and the mysterious "el wiwi mide 2" tag[2].

2021-03-29

YouTuber FS Smash posts a Friday Night Funkin' tutorial edit starring El Wiwi, hitting 2.7 million views in two weeks[5].

2021-04-15

Lessons In Meme Culture releases a video explainer on El Wiwi[6], and artist Kakuho Fujii publicly asks users to stop reposting the sculpture[4].

2021-04-19

BENBROS uploads a monkey-and-El-Wiwi love story animation that pulls 48,000 views in a day[8].

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