What Does Jank Boteko Didi Mean? Memes About @CustomWoodBurning And 'That Baby' Explained

TikTok has been inundated with memes about a small-headed blue-eyed baby everyone is called "Jank Boteko," oftentimes with text that reads "Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi." Fans of the TikTok parody account @cat_terdz, also known as Custom Wood Burnings are very familiar with Jank Boteko, given that the woman running the account has received parcel after parcel in the mail with blankets, posters and other knick knacks with the mystery baby's face plastered on it.

But who is Jank Boteko? Who is Didi? And if they love each other -- whose darn baby is that? Here's a recap of the lore behind Custom Wood Burnings and Jank Boteko.

Who Is Jank Boteko?

The baby many TikTokers refer to as "Jank" was actually a real infant named Jaxon Buell, born in August 2014 in Florida with a rare condition known as microhydranencephaly. The condition made it such that 80 percent of his brain was missing at birth. Buell received media coverage at the time of his birth, alongside some photos of him going viral online, especially on Facebook.

Unfortunately, the baby passed away at the age of five in 2020, with one of his photos going on to be known as the Jank Boteko meme. The photo first circulated in Russian internet circles and on 4chan's /b/ forums, but it didn't come to be known as "Jank Boteko" until fans of the TikTok account Custom Wood Burnings adopted his image.

How Did 'Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi' Become A Meme?

Someone in the Fall of 2023, TikToker @customwoodburning began receiving multiple images of baby Jank in the mail, parcels that she always opened on her TikTok LIVE streams. A September 20th, 2023 post by @cat_terdz shows one such LIVE session, where @customwoodburning can be seen shuffling through a stack of printed Jank Boteko baby photos.

But the meme arguably didn't kick off until @customwoodburnings received a large printed blanket with the Jank Boteko meme on it, complete with text that read "Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi" and an inexplicable star drawn on the baby's forehead.

How Did The 'Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi' Baby Meme Spread?

Memes referencing the blue-eyed baby spread soon after @customwoodburnings posted the video of herself receiving the printed blanket, with TikToker @blue_moon42 dueting the clip to show their own painted interpretation of the baby's image in October 2023. Around the same time, TikToker @blairmaisieipadforeigner posted a video of a cake with "Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi" written on it.

Custom Wood Burnings continued to post about Jank Boteko and showed the sheer amount of Jank-themed merch she's received in the mail since the meme started in December 2023.

For the full history of Jank Boteko, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.