About

The Wendigo is a werewolf-like creature from Native American folklore that roams the forest and woods of North America, preying on hikers and hunters while eating human flesh. Its appearance is typically depicted as a boney figure with a hunched back and deer antlers. Wendigo memes often align with schizoposting, Skinwalkers and Forest Anon. Additionally, the -ussy variant Wendussy came to prominence in the early 2020s, resulting in Who Need They Pussy Ate memes, among others, involving the monster. Overall, lots of creepypasta content has been made about the wendigo.

History

The wendigo, also spelled windigo, comes from the folklore of the Algonquin people, native to North America.^[1] According to the original tale, the wendigo was once a lost hunter. "During a brutally cold winter, this man’s intense hunger drove him to cannibalism. After feasting on another human’s flesh, he transformed into a crazed man-beast, roaming the forest in search of more people to eat."^[1] The cannibalistic nature of the wendigo is harked on often. The wendigo resides primarily in Canada due to it being a cold-weather creature. It's said to be roughly 15 feet tall and its body is often described as "emaciated."^[1]

In the book Legends of the Nahanni Valley,^[2] the author, Basil H. Johnston, an Algonquin native, described the beast as having, "skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out over its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into the sockets." Additionally, the creature is said to give off, "a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.”^[2]

The wendigo doesn’t rely on pursuing its prey in order to capture and eat it, instead, it mimics human voices to lure its prey into the woods where it eats them.^[1] A rough translation of wendigo is “the evil spirit that devours mankind,” and during the 20th century, Algonquin natives likened multiple missing person reports to the wendigo.^[1]

Online Presence

In 2013, the wendigo started to be discussed on imageboards like 4chan, specifically in the /x/ (paranormal) board. On October 13th, 2013, an anon on 4chan's /tg/^[3] imageboard replied in a thread, asking if wendigos were considered a race. On May 31st, 2016, an anon on /x/^[4] posted an image of a wendigo taken from DeviantArt, ^[5] asking, "Does anybody have any skinwalker experiences? I'm especially interested in any that have happened in the northern part of Iowa." On June 1st, 2016, an anon on /x/^[6] shared a skinwalker meme that exploited a drawing of SCP-1471, sometimes called "the wendigo" (shown below).

More wendigo memes surfaced on 4chan's /x/ board going into the years following. For instance, on May 20th, 2018, a thread was started on /x/^[7] that included two wendigo memes — one being a Pepe wendigo and the other being a variation of the Virgin vs. Chad template (both shown below).

Wendigo Creepypastas

In the latter half of the 2010s, creepypasta stories about wendigo sightings were posted to Reddit's /r/nosleep. For instance, on August 25th, 2015, the creepypasta "I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service" about seemingly random staircases in forests included a reference to wendigos when Redditor u/searchandrescuewoods mentioned a creature attempting to lure people into the woods by tricking them with human voices, earning over 19,600 upvotes on /r/nosleep^[11] in roughly seven years. On November 13th, 2018, Redditor iMercilessVoid shared a story titled, "The time I saw a Wendigo," to /r/nosleep,^[9] earning roughly 1,200 upvotes over the course of three years.

On October 11t, 2017, YouTuber CreepsMcPasta posted a Wendigo creepypasta, earning roughly 226,500 views over the course of four years (shown below).

Wendussy

On August 13th, 2021, an anon on 4chan posted a Who Need They Pussy Ate memes that used a hiker version of the Yes Chad asking a wendigo, "Who need they wendussy ate." The original thread has since been archived, however, on August 15th, 2021, Twitter^[8] Solyssey posted a screenshot (shown below).

Going into the remainder of 2021, the word "wendussy" along with the idea of having intercourse with a wendigo started to trend in memes across platforms like TikTok, iFunny and Twitter. For instance, on February 14th, 2021, TikToker^[10] enderbeast907 posted a video about a wendigo dragging them out into the woods for wendussy, earning roughly 2.4 million plays and 234,900 likes in three months (shown below).

Various Examples

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7087305430287961390

Search Interest

External References