RWBY is a web animated series produced by Rooster Teeth about a four-girl team of monster hunters, created by Monty Oum and premiered in July 2013.

Where did RWBY come from?

The first trailer went up on Rooster Teeth's YouTube channel on November 7th, 2012, introducing Ruby Rose fighting wolf-like Grimm called Beowolves.

RWBY (pronounced 'Ruby') is an acronym for the four main characters and their color themes: Ruby (red), Weiss (white), Blake (black) and Yang (yellow).

Fans usually refer to the four leads as Team RWBY and to themselves as the FNDM, tagging fanart, fic and cosplay on sites like Tumblr, deviantART and Archive of Our Own.

Is RWBY still popular?

The show reached Netflix and multiple streaming platforms by October 2016 with four volumes out, and the FNDM still ran fandom surveys around later volume releases.

RWBY

2013web animation seriesclassic

Published September 25, 2026

RWBY is a web animated series produced by Rooster Teeth and created by animator Monty Oum, which premiered at the RTX convention in July 20133. The show follows four color-coded teenage monster hunters at Beacon Academy in the fictional world of Remnant, and its free YouTube release model helped it grow one of the largest indie animation fandoms of the 2010s.

rwby fandom discourse memes cgi animation memes fandom shipping memes youtube culture memes

Overview

Each member of Team RWBY is named for the color she represents: Ruby Rose in red1, Weiss Schnee in white2, Blake Belladonna in black4, and Yang Xiao Long in yellow5. The four attend Beacon Academy to train as Huntresses fighting the Grimm, monstrous creatures that plague the world of Remnant3. Rooster Teeth animated the show in a stylish 3D pipeline heavy on wire-frame action and weapon choreography, a look fans often compared to MMD-style anime pastiche.

The fanbase, which calls itself the FNDM, produced a huge volume of fanart, fanfiction, cosplay and shipping discourse6. Later volumes shifted to a darker, more violent tone that split the audience, and long-running arguments about pacing, the small writers' room, and character deaths still fill fandom Tumblr blogs6. A common Urban Dictionary complaint is that the writing peaked at Volume 3 and slid downhill afterward7.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube / Rooster Teeth website

Creator

Monty Oum

Date

2013

The first RWBY promotional trailer, retroactively called the 'Red' Trailer, went up on Rooster Teeth's YouTube channel on November 7th, 2012, showing a young girl later revealed as Ruby Rose slicing through wolf-like Grimm called Beowolves with her scythe-rifle1. Three more character trailers followed between February and June 2013, introducing Weiss Schnee2, Blake Belladonna4 and Yang Xiao Long fighting with their signature weapons5.

The series itself premiered in front of a live audience at the RTX convention on July 5th, 2013, then went up on Rooster Teeth's website on July 18th, with YouTube uploads following a week behind each episode3. Monty Oum directed and choreographed the show until his death in 2015; Rooster Teeth kept producing volumes after him.

How It Spread

Fan infrastructure was in place before the show ever aired. A dedicated Facebook page went up on September 24th, 2012, an /r/RWBY subreddit opened that November, and a wiki plus a deviantART fan group launched on November 8th3. Discussion also picked up across 4chan's /co/, /v/ and /vg/ boards after the first trailer hit YouTube.

Once episodes started rolling in mid-2013, RWBY drove roughly a 9% jump in views on the Rooster Teeth YouTube channel, briefly making it the fifth most viewed U.S. channel during the week of August 16th, 20133. Crunchyroll began simulcasting the series that same month, and Warner Bros. later picked up international distribution rights, translating and shipping the show overseas. By October 2016 the first four volumes were streaming across YouTube, Rooster Teeth First, Crunchyroll and Netflix.

Momentum took a heavy hit on February 1st, 2015, when creator Monty Oum died aged 33 following a severe allergic reaction that had left him comatose since January 23rd; a GoFundMe launched by Rooster Teeth co-founder Burnie Burns doubled its $50,000 target inside 24 hours3. The FNDM stayed active on Tumblr through subsequent volumes, running community surveys about favorite and least-favorite arcs as recently as the run-up to Volume 66.

Timeline

2012-09-24

The official RWBY Facebook fan page is created, more than two months before any footage exists publicly.

2012-11-07

The 'Red' Trailer starring Ruby Rose is uploaded to Rooster Teeth's YouTube channel, the first public RWBY footage.

2013-07-05

RWBY premieres in front of a live audience at the RTX convention in Austin, Texas.

2013-07-18

The first episode goes up on Rooster Teeth's website for public streaming.

2013-08-16

The Rooster Teeth YouTube channel hits fifth place on the U.S. weekly top-viewed list, driven partly by RWBY.

2015-02-01

Monty Oum dies at 33 after an allergic reaction, prompting a company-wide day of remembrance at Rooster Teeth.

2016-10

Volume 4 arrives with the first four volumes now available across YouTube, Rooster Teeth First, Crunchyroll and Netflix.

How to Use This Meme

Fans typically refer to the main cast collectively as Team RWBY (pronounced 'Ruby') and to the fandom itself as the FNDM. Character shorthand uses the color-name convention: Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang each carry a signature color palette and a distinct transforming weapon, which cosplayers and fan artists commonly use as the identifying visual cue.