Jotchua

About

Jotchua, also known as Esquizo and Perro Dinero, refers to an image of a golden retriever puppy being held in one hand while looking directly forward. The puppy became the subject of Spanish memes and shitposts in January 2021, most notably image macros and photoshops, before taking on the name "Jotchua" among English web users later that month.

Origin

In March 2021, a Facebook^[17] user posted a now-private post to the perrocurifeo Facebook page, putting two puppies up for adoption. On March 28th, Facebook^[18] shitpost page Recreo Shitpost posted an image of the dogs from the original adoption post showing a black puppy alongside a golden one labeled "Cain y Abel" (shown below, left). Meme pages cropped the image^[2] to show just the golden puppy in future posts.

Some users know the image as "money dog" or "perro dinero," based on a Spanish image macro featuring the dog that claims posting the image as your profile picture will award the user money (shown below). It is unknown when this meme was first posted, but seems to have inspired a number of Spanish internet users and meme pages to change their profile pictures to the dog (for example, private meme page Danksitos Ardidos V2) around January 2021 or shortly prior to it, which eventually lead to memes about the dog.

Hola Esquizo

On January 6th, 2021, the Spanish-language Facebook^[5] page K's Randoms, who posts animal-themed memes, changed their profile picture to the image of Perro Dinero. On January 20th, K's Randoms posted^[6] a series of image macros titled "Hello schizo" depicting an exchange between a staring cat and the dog, who is portrayed as crazy, garnering over 9,000 reactions and 21,000 shares in three months. On January 22nd, they uploaded a video version of the meme to the K's Random YouTube^[7] page, garnering over 427,000 views in just under three months (shown below).

This video left many knowing the dog as "Esquizo," the Spanish word for "schizo." On February 18th, K's Randoms posted another comic to Facebook^[8] and uploaded a video version of it to YouTube^[9] featuring the character as "Esquizo," garnering over 1,100 reactions on the former and 507,000 views on the latter in two months (shown below).

Rumored Gore Video

There is a rumor that the image comes from a gore video in which the dog is cut open, however, this is untrue. It is unknown where this rumor comes from, and is only supported by word-of-mouth comments and people claiming that the setting of the photo is suspicious (example comments shown below).

Jotchua

On January 24th, 2021, Instagram^[1] user @_kingorange uploaded a Demotivational Poster featuring a grainy image of a dog and the text "JOTCHUA," garnering over 29,000 likes in three months (shown below). This is the earliest known upload of the dog in association with the name "Jotchua."

Spread

The Jotchua demotivational poster was then posted by a number of other Instagram^[3][4] accounts over the next few days, garnering thousands of additional likes. Over the next few months, new variations of the meme began appearing both in Spanish and English, many of them shitposts carrying on the "Esquizo" character traits. For example, on February 3rd, Imgur^[10] user rigobertoh66812 posted a deep-fried version of the image with text that translates to, "Everyday that passes the apocalypse becomes less of a fear and more of a hope" (shown below).

On February 8th, Spanish Twitter^[11] user @darkthanos shared the full picture of the dog, saying, "I love the photo of this dog, I don't know why," garnering over 4,800 likes, 120 comments, and 300 retweets in two months. On the same day, Twitter^[12] user @Crisscrafter posted a photoshop in which a child is being turned into Jotchua via cellphone waves (shown below). On February 11th, Tumblr^[13] user 3000s shared the image, garnering over 9,400 notes in two months.

Photoshops and memes featuring Jotchua became very popular on Tumblr. For example, on February 27th, Tumblr^[14] user toesucker posted a new demotivational poster featuring the dog and a Bible-style quote encouraging readers to go downstairs when they're called by their mothers, garnering over 3,000 notes in under two months (shown below, left). On March 4th, Tumblr^[15] user iforgotmyotheraccoun posted an edit of Jotchua as an angel, garnering over 11,000 notes in a month (shown below, right).

On April 11th, Twitter^[16] user @Mechazawa posted a video of Jotchua with another dog over a background and music from the video game series Persona, garnering over 7,300 likes and 2,400 retweets in four days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References