Funky Tom

About

Funky Tom is a nickname given to a character that appears in the teaser trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic who is seen popping out of a jack-in-the-box and laughing. The teaser was released on August 6th, 2024 and the character was given the nickname by a Redditor that day, inspiring memes and posts referring to the character as Funky Tom. While the unofficial nickname was supported by many, others were more critical of it.

Origin

On August 6th, 2024, the Steel Wool Studios YouTube^[1] and X^[2] pages released a teaser trailer for a Five Nights at Freddy's spin-off game titled Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic, garnering over 600,000 views on the former and 60,000 likes on the latter in a day (shown below). In the trailer, a yet-to-be-named character is seen popping out of a jack-in-the-box and laughing.

That day, u/BobcatEquivalent7914 made a now-removed post to /r/fivenightsatfreddys^[3] writing, "Can we call this dude like 'Funky Tom' until we get his name confirmed? Cause that would be the funniest thing ever to me," garnering over 1,100 upvotes in a day (shown below). The post gained largely positive reception from commenters.

Spread

The nickname "Funky Tom" continued to spread on sites like Reddit and X / Twitter over the following days.

On August 6th, 2024, X^[4] user @The0zxne posted screenshots of references to the name on /r/fivenightsatfreddys, writing, "By the way FNAF Twitter, this guy is now unofficially called Funky Tom. Please call this guy Funky Tom. Thank you," garnering over 7,100 likes in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, u/Dmayce22 posted fan art of the character to /r/fivenightsatfreddys,^[5] writing, "I did fan art of Funky Tom!!!" garnering over 200 upvotes in a day (shown below, right).

Some social media users criticized the nickname "Funky Tom." On August 6th, u/H9355 made a post to /r/fivenightsatfreddys^[6] titled, "(Possible hot take) Regarding 'Funky Tom'" in which they write that they love the nickname, but hope it doesn't becomg "the thing" with the character, writing, "I just hope that this character doesn’t become forever stuck as a meme," garnering over 150 upvotes in a day.

On August 7th, X^[7] user @kevciaran posted, "you're all crazy for not unanimously shutting down the name funky tom," garnering over 230 likes in under a day (shown below). On the same day, X^[8] user @entom_dp posted, "i’m not fucking calling it funky tom," garnering over 1,100 likes in under a day.

That day, u/QuiccStacc made a post to /r/fivenightsatfreddys^[9] that garnered over 500 upvotes in under a day pushing back against critics, writing:

His name is Funky Tom. He has been dubbed.

The fact some of yall are getting so pressed about a goofy name is bizarre to me. You're defending it in Scott's name too – of course he'll have an official name, but Scott's not going to be mad at a fun little fan name.

It's disappointing that you see people having fun with the name Funky Tom and get so annoyed by it. Its just a bit of fun and it's been less than a day.

Honestly the fandom space is becoming more and more toxic and its sad to see :( This is the 10th anniversary, an amazing milestone, and the subreddit is being flooded with posts about a harmless joke.

Anyway. Long live Funky Tom, and happy 10th anniversary!!!!

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References