About

Tsuchinoko Real is a catchphrase originating from Tumblr in which people joke about the titular phrase after it was used in a popular Tumblr post. It inspired posts in which people post pictures of animals resembling the mythical Japanese creature with the phrase.

Origin

On July 26th, 2017, Tumblr user moonlandingwasfaked^[1] reblogged an image posted by deactivated Tumblr user look-at-the-recluse of three cats circling a lizard with the caption "tsuchinoko real" (shown below). The post has accumulated over 18,000 notes. A tsuchinoko is a mythical lizard from Japanese folklore.^[2]

Spread

The phrase resonated with other Tumblr users. Meme Documentation ^[3] notes that the meme began being popularized when several Tumblr users began reblogging moonlandingwasfaked's post with the same caption (shown below).

The popularity of the post led others to begin making their own posts riffing on the phrase. For example, on August 4th, Tumblr user hideokojimapissfetish^[4] uploaded a picture of a cat with the phrase, gaining over 630 notes (shown below).

The meme continued to spread throughout the year, and gained further popularity with the creation of the Tumblr blog picsthatmakeyougotsuchinokoreal, which started in December of 2017.^[5] A particularly popular offshoot of the meme involved posting pictures of the Pokémon Dunsparce with the phrase (examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References