# El Wiwi 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. ## Origin 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 sculptures[1]. 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 notes[3]. 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 hours[2]. - **Platform:** Instagram (artwork) / Twitter and Discord (viral spread) - **Creator:** Kakuho Fujii (sculpture); meme originators unknown - **Date:** 2018 ## Overview El Wiwi, also known as Mini Michi, is a photograph of a roughly 5mm clay cat sculpted by Japanese miniature artist Kakuho Fujii[1]. 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 photo[2]. 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 server[3]. 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 stop[4]. ## 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 trick[2]. The article described the cryptic recurring tag line "el wiwi mide 2" (El Wiwi measures 2), with no explanation of what the 2 referred to[2]. 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 likes[3]. 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 weeks[5]. Mainstream meme explainer coverage followed on April 15th, 2021, when Lessons In Meme Culture put out a video walkthrough of the trend[6], and animator Peternity posted a looped version of the original photo[7]. 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 sad[4]. BENBROS followed on April 19th, 2021, with a tragic ape-and-El-Wiwi love story animation that pulled 48,000 views in a day[8]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is El Wiwi? El Wiwi is a photo of a 5mm clay Scottish Fold cat sculpture made by Japanese artist Kakuho Fujii in 2018, which Spanish-speaking users first turned into the "Mini Michi" blessing meme in 2019 before an English-speaking Twitter and Discord wave renamed it El Wiwi in 2021[1][2]. ### Where did El Wiwi come from? The artwork comes from Kakuho Fujii's Instagram miniature series posted February 22nd, 2018[1]. The El Wiwi name specifically came from a February 28th, 2021 Twitter campaign by @robelzonico that linked to a now-deleted El Wiwi Discord server[2]. ### What does El Wiwi mean? El Wiwi is a made-up nickname with no literal meaning, invented by Spanish and English Twitter users in 2021; the artist Kakuho Fujii has stated they never named the cat and did not choose El Wiwi[4]. An earlier Spanish caption called the sculpture Mini Michi, meaning little kitty[3]. ### How do you use El Wiwi? The common convention is to post the original photo with absurd or affectionate captions in Spanish or English, often framing the tiny cat as a blessing, a cult figure or an SCP-style anomaly; photoshops typically add family members, props or crossover characters[3][2]. ### Is El Wiwi still popular? The main viral window ran from late February through April 2021, with the Discord server, FNF edits and photoshop waves all landing inside that span[2][5]. It is still remembered as a 2021 meme classic but is not actively trending. ## References 1. [https://www.instagram.com/p/BffrWlFHOag/]() 2. [https://eldeforma.com/2021/03/01/wiwi-gato-mini-viral-twitter/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/el-wiwi]() 4. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CNr-TRVnZwh/]() 5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZQokCiib0]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ws88TP0Et0]() 7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUwY0zDPZ48]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHyejsq4uIM]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/el-wiwi Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library