Gooigi is a slime-based doppelgänger of Luigi that can slip through grates and walk over spikes, but dissolves in water.

Where did Gooigi come from?

He debuted in the Nintendo 3DS port of Luigi's Mansion on October 12, 2018, then went viral after being featured in Luigi's Mansion 3 at E3 2019.

What does Gooigi mean?

The name is a portmanteau of "goo" and "Luigi," which is why Twitter users immediately turned it into innuendo jokes after the reveal.

How do you use Gooigi in the game?

In single-player you swap to him with the right analog stick to reach spike-guarded items, and in co-op a second player controls him directly.

Is the Gooigi meme still popular?

The viral spike was tied to E3 2019, but Gooigi is still a recognized character in the Luigi's Mansion series and gets referenced whenever the games come up.

Developer Next Level Games designed the character while prototyping Luigi's Mansion 3, per director Yoshihito Ikebata.

Wagooigi is a fan-invented Wario-style variant tweeted by @Tonytula after the E3 reveal, which pulled in over 500 retweets and 2,100 likes.

Why can't Gooigi touch water?

He's made of a jelly-like slime, so any contact with water instantly dissolves him, and the game's puzzles are built around that limitation.

Did mainstream press cover the Gooigi jokes?

Yes, outlets like Engadget and Polygon wrote about him during E3 2019, mixing gameplay coverage with the fan reactions.

What game did Gooigi first appear in?

The Nintendo 3DS remake of the original Luigi's Mansion, released in North America on October 12, 2018.

Gooigi

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Published August 25, 2026

Gooigi is a slime doppelgänger of Luigi from Nintendo's Luigi's Mansion series who debuted on the 3DS in October 2018 and went viral at E3 2019. His name inspired a wave of Twitter innuendo jokes after the Luigi's Mansion 3 reveal.

nintendo memes double entendre memes doppelganger memes gaming character design memes

Overview

Gooigi is a slime-based doppelgänger of Luigi from Nintendo's ghost-hunting Luigi's Mansion series. The gooey clone controls almost identically to Luigi but can squeeze through metal grates, walk across spike traps, and reach objects tucked behind hazards the regular plumber can't cross1. His one glaring weakness is water, which dissolves him instantly and shapes most of the puzzles designed around him2.

The character first appeared as a co-op mechanic in the Nintendo 3DS remake of the original Luigi's Mansion, quietly launching in October 20188. Wider awareness arrived nine months later when Nintendo showed off Luigi's Mansion 3 at E3 2019 and confirmed Gooigi was crossing over to the Switch sequel3. Within hours, social media zeroed in on the name and turned Gooigi into a fresh batch of Nintendo innuendo jokes.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Nintendo (character creation) / Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

Next Level Games

Date

2019

Gooigi shipped with the Nintendo 3DS port of Luigi's Mansion, released in North America on October 12, 20188. That version of the game slotted him in as a permanent second player, letting a friend or family member team up on ghost-hunting rooms that were originally single-controller only3. He wasn't the star of any marketing push, so most Nintendo fans only discovered him after the fact.

Luigi's Mansion 3DS director Yoshihito Ikebata later told Polygon that the goo concept actually started at developer Next Level Games while the studio was prototyping the Switch sequel1. The original plan was to render the ghosts themselves out of some jelly-like substance, but the team pivoted once they realized they needed a solution for two-player co-op that didn't require two full Luigis on screen1. Gooigi ended up being the answer, and got a soft launch on 3DS before the Switch reveal.

How It Spread

The meme side of Gooigi kicked in during Nintendo's E3 press showcase on June 11, 2019, when a Luigi's Mansion 3 trailer put the character in front of a much larger audience3. Within hours, Twitter users started riffing on the name. User @broderick tied Gooigi to the long-running "Luigi's penis size" joke, framing Nintendo as obliviously walking straight into innuendo territory4. User @Tonytula went for pure wordplay, tweeting that Gooigi's existence implied a "Wagooigi," which pulled in over 500 retweets and 2,100 likes5.

The name kept generating sex jokes for days. User @leyawn tweeted "i'm going to suck off some ghosts with my wet friend gooigi," which cleared 200 likes6. The official Brazzers Twitter account weighed in with "Gooigi is Luigi's pornstar name," topping 260 likes and giving the bit a mainstream porn co-sign7. Games press covered both the character and the jokes, with Engadget publishing a hands-on preview from the show floor and Polygon writing about him as a low-key horror creation the internet had already claimed2 1.

Alongside the shock jokes, players fixated on the darker read of the mechanic itself. Polygon noted that summoning Gooigi in single-player makes Luigi visibly slump with a vacant stare, as though donating his life force to the goo double1. Engadget's preview leaned into the puzzle side instead, describing sequences where Luigi rides an elevator while Gooigi stays behind to push a windmill-style pulley, plus new moves like a Burst attack that fires air in every direction2.

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How to Use This Meme

The Gooigi meme typically works two ways. The first is name-based innuendo, riffing on "goo" plus "Luigi" to generate porn-adjacent gags or Wario-style copycats like the "Wagooigi" callout5. The second is body horror, joking about Gooigi being trapped inside Luigi, wondering whether he has his own goo brother "Gooario," or picturing what happens when he's not being used1. Most posts skip screenshots entirely and just play the name for laughs, since the character's visual is basically green Luigi. When images do appear, they tend to be direct captures from the E3 trailer, with captions written in the same shock-tweet tone that carried the character through his first viral week7.

Cultural Impact

Mainstream games press picked up the Gooigi bit alongside the actual gameplay reveal. Engadget covered him in a hands-on preview from E3, focusing on how the puzzle design was built around swapping between Luigi and his slime clone2. Polygon ran a separate piece pressing on the horror angle, asking Nintendo what Gooigi is actually made of and joking about the vacant stare Luigi wears while the double is active1. The LA Times also picked up the story during E3 week3. That combination of trade press writeups and viral Twitter jokes meant Gooigi arrived on Switch in October 2019 already primed as a fan-favorite side character rather than a technical footnote.

Fun Facts

The goo material was originally being tested on the ghosts in Luigi's Mansion 3, not on Luigi himself, according to director Yoshihito Ikebata1.

Gooigi's water weakness is why so many puzzles in the Switch sequel involve bathrooms, kitchens, and other plumbing hazards where the goo can't tag along2.

Gooigi officially debuted in October 2018 on the 3DS, but most players first learned about him during the June 11, 2019 E3 reveal for Luigi's Mansion 38 3.

In co-op, a second player fully controls Gooigi in a setup Nintendo has compared to how Cappy works in Super Mario Odyssey2.

The Brazzers Twitter account joined the joke on reveal day, tweeting that Gooigi was Luigi's pornstar name and racking up over 260 likes7.

Derivatives & Variations

"Wagooigi" -- a fan-invented Wario-style variant coined by @Tonytula in the hours after the E3 reveal[5].

"Gooario" -- a hypothetical goo version of Mario floated by Polygon as an extension of the same body-horror bit[1].