# Miguel's Guitar A looping GIF of Miguel from the 2000 DreamWorks film The Road to El Dorado hunching over his lute and strumming at absurd speed became one of the longest-running character-strum reaction images online. The clip spread through early GIF hosts and animation fandoms in the late 2000s and 2010s, and by 2014 Tumblr artists were already redrawing the pose on their own fictional characters. ## Origin The source is the 2000 DreamWorks animated feature The Road to El Dorado, directed by Bibo Bergeron and Don Paul. In the sequence, Tulio and Miguel try to win a map to the lost city of gold during a dockside card game, and Miguel improvises musical accompaniment on his lute until the hustle collapses into a brawl[1]. The YouTube upload of the scene has circulated as the common reference clip for the GIF[1]. No single creator is tied to the first GIF export. Early rehosts appeared on dedicated GIF aggregators such as WeKnowGifs and GifSoup, where the file was reuploaded by unrelated users before migrating onto larger social sites[4][5]. - **Platform:** The Road to El Dorado (source) / DeviantART, Tumblr (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2000 ## Overview Miguel's Guitar, also called Miguel's Banjo or Miguel's Ukelele, is a short looped clip of the blond con man Miguel bending forward and frantically plucking his lute while his partner Tulio tries to hustle a group of Spanish soldiers at cards[1]. Posters usually drop the GIF into a thread when a conversation needs a theatrical, over-the-top musical sting, or they swap Miguel out for another fictional character redrawn in the same hunched pose[2]. The joke works because the strumming is far too fast and far too dramatic for the scene it originally scored, so the clip reads as a punchline no matter what caption or crossover is pasted over it[3]. DeviantART artists in particular ran with the redraw angle, posting hundreds of pieces that stage anime, cartoon and video game characters in Miguel's exact grip and shoulder lean[2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Miguel's Guitar? It is a looped reaction GIF of Miguel from The Road to El Dorado leaning over his lute and strumming at an exaggerated speed during a card-hustling scene[1]. ### Where did Miguel's Guitar come from? The clip is from the 2000 DreamWorks film The Road to El Dorado, specifically the scene where Tulio and Miguel try to gamble for a map to the city of gold[1]. ### What does Miguel's Guitar mean? People use it as an over-the-top musical sting, dropping it into threads that need a theatrical punchline or redrawing the pose onto other fictional characters[3]. ### How do you use Miguel's Guitar? Common uses include posting the raw GIF as a reaction, syncing it to new audio for GifSound-style remixes, or drawing a different character in Miguel's hunched strumming stance[2][3]. ### Is Miguel's Guitar still popular? The GIF settled into classic status, kept alive by DeviantART crossover art and recurring fan reposts rather than fresh viral moments[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2TP6DZpmfA]() 2. [https://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=miguel%27s+guitar]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/miguels-guitar]() 4. [https://weknowgifs.com/gif/tag/miguel-playing-guitar-gif/]() 5. [https://gifsoup.com/view/1164437/miguel-guitar.html]() 6. [http://scarecrowartist.tumblr.com/post/79424093647/future-cosplay-in-the-works]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/miguels-guitar Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library