About

Crying Hamster or Ebichu Crying refers to a reaction image meme using a scene from the 1999 anime Oruchuban Ebichu in which the main character, the pet hamster Ebichu, is crying while holding a wooden bucket. A still image and GIF showing the character crying became a prominent reaction in April 2015, gaining virality over the years as a meme format about being dramatic or emotional about a subject of interest.

Origin

The Ebichu crying image comes from episode 24 of the first season of the anime,^[2] titled "Is It Okay to Drink?," which aired on October 1st, 1999. YouTube^[3] user @parishilton1376 uploaded a video of the full scene (shown below) on March 20th, 2019.

The earliest known online mention of the Ebichu crying scene was posted by an Oruchuban Ebichu fan account on Facebook^[1] on April 27th, 2015. The image is paired with the caption "Good Morning guys, Don't forget to face everyday with crying like Ebichu," which received only four likes and four shares in nine years.

Spread

The Ebichu Crying scene became a prevalent reaction image and video on social media during the late 2010s. For example, on September 23rd, 2019, Reddit^[4] user u/mostlikelytocry posted a version of the image in which Ebichu is carrying a wooden bucket filled with hearts to express their love for the South Korean reality TV Running Man. The post (shown below, left) garnered over 135 upvotes and seven comments in five years.

On October 6th, 2017, X^[5] user @natsume_bts used a cropped version of the Ebichu crying scene paired with a picture of a BTS member to share its shocked reaction to finding out the Oruchuban Ebichu series is not a kid's anime, but an adult comedy. The post (shown below, right) amassed roughly 40 likes and 10 retweets in seven years.

Various Examples

Me.At 10:05 a.m. when #BTS tickets are SOLD OUT😭😭🥺..You know I ain’t lyin 😓 pic.twitter.com/iQk1QSqCYc

— Seulpeunsasili (@seulpeunsasili) March 1, 2019

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