About

Shroomjak or Mushroom Wojak, also known as Shrigma Male is a variation of the Wojak character that resembles a mushroom, adorned with a smiling face. The Wojak was first posted to 4chan's /b/ board in January 2021, becoming popularized later in the year as it was shared around social media and spread to other platforms.

Origin

On January 30th, 2021, an anonymous user of 4chan's^[1] Random (/b/) board posted an image of a Wojak character resembling a mushroom, writing, "i made my own wojak" (shown below). The first reply to the post is "kys," meaning kill yourself.

A version of the character without the mushroom top was also posted in the thread (see templates), as well as several photoshops of the images by other 4chan users (examples shown below).

Spread

The image was shared on social media a number of times in the following months. On June 28th, it was shared on Twitter,^[5] garnering over 28,000 likes and 3,400 retweets in three days. On June 30th, 2021, Redditor u/FlexMexDex posted a screenshot of the thread to /r/4chan^[4] with an additional image at the bottom depicting the comment exchange with Wojaks, garnering over 3,900 upvotes in a day (shown below).

The post inspired numerous memes referencing the mushroom Wojak on /r/4chan and /r/196^[2][3] over the course of the next two days. For example, on that day u/Xetsio posted a drawing of the character as a muscular female, garnering over 7,000 upvotes in under a day (shown below, left). U/thecatofnumbers posted a comic using the character and the quote from another mushroom-related meme, garnering over 4,500 upvotes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On July 1st, u/TechnoGamerOff posted a screenshot from 4chan to /r/196 of a post reading, "why did reddit ruin my mushroom," along with an image of the muscular mushroom woman, garnering over 7,100 upvotes in under a day (shown below).

Beyond Reddit, shroomjak continued to spread across social media, proving notably popular on Twitter, Instagram, and 4chan. Variations of shroomjak also became popular as a profile picture on sites like Twitter

On July 2nd, Redditor u/Jac904704 posted a photoshopped YouTube thumbnail featuring shroomjak as the "ultimate shrigma male" to /r/196,^[6] garnering over 21,000 upvotes in a day (shown below). The image was posted to Twitter^[7] by @ApexPigg later that day, garnering over 35,000 likes and 4,300 retweets in the same span of time.

On July 2nd, YouTuber Sigma Show uploaded a video titled "How to Become SHRIGMA Male | RAREST MALE TYPE" telling people how to replace images of themselves with shroomjak, recreating the photoshopped thumbnail, garnering over 4,000 views in a day (shown below).

On the same day, a number of other videos featuring shroomjak were uploaded to the site (examples shown below).

Demonic Shroomjak

On July 5th, an anonymous user of 4chan's /x/^[8] (Paranormal) board posted shroomjak along with a paragraph describing how the character is literally a demon, citing fans of the wojak as cult-like (shown below).

The thread gained significant attention, inspiring anons to post memes depicting shroomjak in a demonic way (examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Templates

External References