11 years ago, I posted about the Charmander Conspiracy, a social media phenomenon that was started when a gentleman tripping on alcohol and Xanax decided to tattoo himself with a Pokémon character named Charmander, a fire creature with a flaming tail.

I can’t go into detail here about how deep the craziness went, just read the post. But recently a new phenomenon has arisen based on a strange creature who lives in the Seattle area, a genetically-different raccoon who has been dubbed “Jimothy” by Kiana Hall, who recently filmed him and wasn’t sure what she was seeing. She called him “Jimothy,” she said, because he looked like a Jimothy.

Seattle Times article about Jimothy (paywall-free): https://archive.ph/XitdU

It was enough to start another Internet phenomenon, with pictures and videos and cartoons of the deformed creature; apparently he has a condition called “short-spine syndrome,” an extremely rare congenital condition where an animal’s vertebrae fail to properly form and separate during fetal development. This causes the bones in the backbone to fuse and compress, resulting in a significantly shortened torso, a lack of a visible neck, and sometimes tail abnormalities. There are only 30 documented cases in veterinary annals.

I, on the other hand, thought immediately of this image from The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber, with the concomitant paragraph:

Something very much like nothing anyone had seen before came trotting down the stairs and crossed the room.

But others took a more modern view of Jimothy:

Sometimes Jimothy is strange:

And sometimes he’s so cute you want to pinch him. (Gigil!)

It didn’t take long for the shirts to arrive.

There’s much more, most of it aimed at monetizing this little guy’s image. Just search for “jimothy” and then select “images,” and you’ll see just how much there is.

It remains to be seen how deep this phenomenon will go. For the moment, at least, Jimothy promises to be as well-known on the Internet as Ea-nāṣir, the corrupt copper merchant.

The Old Wolf has spoken.