About

Gwa Gwa refers to a sound clip from the 2015 Ugandan action film Who Killed Captain Alex? in which a man repeatedly shouts what sounds like "gwa gwa gwa gwa." The clip and phrase is often associated with the Zulul emote and a distorted image of a large orange cat known as Gwa Gwa Cat.

Origin

On October 3rd, 2017, YouTuber^[1] TormentDubz uploaded a one-second-long clip to YouTube of the Zulul emote over a sound clip from 2015's low-budget Ugandan film "Who Killed Captain Alex?" in which a character repeatedly yells what sounds like "gwa gwa gwa" (shown below). The video gained over 116,000 views in just under four years (shown below).

Spread

On October 21st, 2020, YouTuber^[4] TerribleTerrio posted a video mashing up the "gwa gwa" sound clip with the theme song from the video game Yoshi Island, gaining over 638,000 views in 10 months (shown below).

Gwa Gwa Cat

Sometime in 2019, u/groovybraeden posted a stretched image of Instagram^[2] cat @therealcatato, aka Potato the cat, to /r/ambien with the title "gwa gwa," gaining over 640 upvotes in a year. By December 2019, a screenshot of the post began to circulate on social media.^[5] The post has since been deleted and was reuploaded to /r/ambien^[3] on February 25th, gaining over 640 upvotes in a year (shown below).

On February 11th, 2020, Instagram^[6] meme page @big_chungles posted an image macro using the squished cat image with top text reading "gwa gwa," gaining over 4,000 likes in a year (shown below).

On June 10th, Instagram^[8] page @bruvahman posted a video macro with the text "do you like the way I gwa gwa" using the image, gaining over 6,700 views in a year (shown below). On June 19th, the video was shared by Instagram^[9] page @guacamole_mp4, gaining over 198,000 views and 33,000 likes in a similar span of time.

On February 25th, YouTuber gwa gwa uploaded a video of the cat image macro combined with the "gwa gwa" audio clip, gaining over 442,000 views in roughly a year (shown below).

The cat soon became known as "gwa gwa cat." On March 19th, 2021, Instagram^[7] user @meowcursed posted an image of gwa gwa cat with human feet, gaining over 30,000 likes in five months (shown below).

Related Memes

Zulul

Zulul is an edited variation of the LUL Twitch emote often spammed in chats with the phrase "Vi Von Zulul" by fans of Twitch streamer Forsen, which was spawned out of a viral photograph of Pastor Lul, a Nuer refugee who was discovered during a Twitch stream held in September 2016. Additionally, mentions of Zulul are often accompanied by references to the Ugandan action film Who Killed Captain Alex?

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References