It began with a bewildered exclamation: "What am I looking at?" Seattle resident Kiana Hall captured the moment on her phone as an unusual raccoon hurtled across a pavement and up some nearby steps. The video, posted to Instagram, showed a creature with a peculiarly spindly shape and a scamper that reminded many of a Tasmanian Devil. Hall captioned it "Jimothy the raccoon with short spine syndrome".
While it is not known for certain whether the condition is the cause of his appearance, the description stuck. And the internet did what the internet does: it seized on Jimothy and made him a star.
“Seattle raccoon Jimothy, with a distinctive shape and short spine syndrome, has gained over eight million views on Instagram.”
As Hall's reel spread, it racked up more than eight million views by Friday morning, 24 July 2026. Comments poured in. "My brother was talking about Jimothy the other day, and I asked him who he is," one user wrote. "He told me Jimothy would find me, and now he has."
Jimothy joins a peculiar pop cultural tradition that includes Moo Deng, Neil the Seal, Doge and Grumpy Cat — a lineage of unusual, shareable animals immortalised in amateur footage, brand posts and even murals. Some users have praised Jimothy's fame for drawing attention to spine conditions. "I hope that someone can care for Jimothy as a wild animal... he will get older and need more care," wrote one user who said she had been born with a congenital spine syndrome.
Lessons in Meme Culture, an Australian YouTuber, points out that Jimothy is not the first animal with short spine syndrome to go viral: a dog called Pig briefly became an internet sensation in 2014 for the same reason.
Dr Idil Gal, whose area of expertise was not detailed in the initial reports, offered a broader explanation for the raccoon's rise: "As cities expand and food waste increases, humans and raccoons cross paths more often."
For now, Jimothy remains a wild animal roaming the streets of Seattle, his future uncertain. But his spindly silhouette has already secured him a place in the chaotic pantheon of internet animal fame.