Wakka (Final Fantasy X)

About

Wakka is a supporting character from the video game Final Fantasy X (FFX) voiced by John DiMaggio in the English release. Wakka is a Blitzball player, portrayed as muscular and tan with a blue bandana and orange hair. He has a Besaid Island accent in the game, similar to a real-life Austronesian accent, often using words like "brudda" in speech, and has a cheerful personality. The character is also religious, following Yevon's religion and refusing to do anything that goes against it, showing particular detest for the Al Bhed tribe of people. Wakka has been the consistent subject of memes throughout the 2010s, including image macros, photoshops and video edits, most of them making fun of his various character traits.

Origin

On July 19th, 2001, the tenth entry in the Final Fantasy video game series, titled Final Fantasy X, was released. The first character the player meets is a friend of the protagonist named Wakka and becomes your first companion (scene shown below). Wakka is voiced by John DiMaggio, notable for voicing Jake the Dog from Adventure Time and Bender from Futurama among countless other characters.

Wakka's main weapon throughout the game is a Blitzball, essentially a volleyball. He is a follower of Yevon's religion holds a grudge towards the Al Bhed, a tribe of technologists who follow go against the teachings of Yevon. Wakka has an intense hatred for the Al Bhed, often coming off as racist. This is due to his brother dying at the hands of a Machina weapon rather than a sword given to him by Wakka, however, he veils the reason as being religious. In July 2016, YouTuber^[1] XFactor1111 posted a video titled, "Wakka is racist" showing scenes of these moments (shown below).

Spread

Some of the earliest memes referencing Wakka are Demotivational Posters mocking him for his choice of weapon and hairstyle, and were posted to DeviantArt^[2][3] on February 24th and 26th by user StainedVenom (shown below, left and right).

Jokes mocking various aspects of Wakka continued over the course of the next decade, being the driving force behind most memes about him. In December 2015, Super Best Friends Play began a playthrough of FFX,^[4] making explicit note of Wakka's racism towards the Al Bhed throughout. These clips were compiled in a YouTube^[5] video posted on April 26th, 2016 titled "Wakka's Final Solution Compilation," garnering over 509,000 views in five years (shown below). This playthrough increased the frequency of jokes about Wakka being racist.

On August 5th, 2019, Redditor u/TemurTron posted a Wakka meme depicting him as "Scumbag Steve" to /r/FinalFantasy,^[6] garnering over 1,300 upvotes in two years (shown below, left). On December 25th, Redditor u/kolbyjack95 posted a meme parodying a scene in The Boondocks to /r/TwoBestFriendsPlay^[7] referencing Wakka's racism, garnering over 1,400 upvotes in a similar span of time (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References