There are raccoons. And then there is Jimothy.
Jimothy is not like other raccoons. He’s built different — and I mean that in the most literal, physical, scientifically observable way possible. He looks like someone described a raccoon to a person who had never seen one, and that person did their best. He looks like a raccoon who has a LinkedIn profile. He looks like he pays taxes and is mildly disappointed in all of us.
We’ve written about him a couple of times before and I’ll be honest — we didn’t always get his whole deal right. So consider this the definitive Jimothy post. The one we actually get correct.
What does Jimothy actually look like?
Jimothy is a raccoon, yes, but he carries himself like a man who just got back from a work conference he didn’t want to attend. He’s got a wider, flatter face than your average trash panda — more rectangular than pointy. His eyes are set forward on his face in a way that reads as distinctly, unsettlingly human. The mask markings around those eyes don’t help. If anything, they make him look like he’s wearing novelty glasses.
He’s stocky. Not fat — stocky. Like he lifts, but only because his doctor told him he had to. His body is short and wide and he moves with the energy of someone who owns exactly one blazer and wears it to everything.
His ears are round and a little small for his head. His nose is a perfect little button. He looks like a Build-A-Bear if Build-A-Bear had existential dread.
Why did Jimothy go viral in the first place?
Jimothy went viral because the internet took one look at him and said: that is a person. Not metaphorically. Literally — the comments on every Jimothy video are some variation of “that’s a man,” “he’s wearing a suit,” and “why does he look like he’s about to ask to speak to the manager.”
The thing about Jimothy is that it’s not just his face. It’s the combination. The face plus the posture plus the way he holds his little hands plus the expression that reads as mild, permanent disappointment. He’s the full package.
1. He has the face of a man who has seen too much
Jimothy’s resting expression is what I can only describe as weary. Not sad, exactly. Just tired in the specific way that comes from knowing too much about the world and being unable to do anything about it. You look at Jimothy and you think: that raccoon has opinions about property taxes.
2. His hands
Raccoon hands are already unsettling because they look like tiny human hands. Jimothy’s hands are just a little bit worse. He holds things with a confidence that suggests he has been holding things his entire adult life. He picks up food like he’s picking up a report he’s about to review. Every single time.
3. The way he sits
Jimothy doesn’t crouch like a feral animal. Jimothy sits. Upright. With posture. Like he is waiting for his appointment. Like he arrived ten minutes early because he was raised right. The fact that he is a raccoon makes this deeply, profoundly wrong in the best possible way.
4. He is built like a man in a costume
This is maybe the core of the whole thing. Jimothy is shaped like a human wearing a raccoon suit — not the other way around. His proportions are just slightly off from what a raccoon should be. Wider through the middle. Shorter in the legs. The head sits on the neck in a way that suggests there’s a person in there having a great time at a theme park.
5. His face does not move the way you expect it to
When Jimothy looks at you — and he will look directly at you, into your soul, with zero hesitation — his face stays very still. Raccoons are usually twitchy, alert, constantly scanning. Jimothy maintains eye contact like he is trying to read your energy. It’s a lot. It’s too much. It’s perfect.
6. The internet decided he has a whole personality and ran with it
The beautiful thing about Jimothy going viral is that the internet didn’t just share videos of him — they built a guy. Jimothy has a personality now. He’s the type of raccoon who says “per my last email.” He brings his own lunch to work. He has seen some things, and he has filed the appropriate paperwork about those things.
That’s the power of a face that reads as human. People project, and what they projected onto Jimothy is extremely funny and extremely specific.
7. He made raccoons cool
Raccoons have a PR problem. They’re associated with trash and chaos and rabies fears and hissing at people behind Applebee’s. Jimothy is out here making raccoons look respectable. Dignified, even. You look at Jimothy and you think: maybe I’ve been wrong about raccoons. Maybe they deserve more credit. Maybe they are simply small people who are doing their best.
But what do I know?
8. The videos are extremely short and extremely rewatchable
Jimothy content tends to be short — just long enough to clock the face, register the wrongness, and laugh. And then you watch it again. And then you send it to someone. And then you watch it again to see their reaction. Jimothy has incredible rewatch value because every single time you think: I cannot believe that is a raccoon.
9. He’s weirdly comforting
I think part of why people love Jimothy so much is that he’s weird but he’s okay. He’s out there in the world being completely himself — an unsettling little man-raccoon — and he’s fine. He’s not bothered. He’s got his little hands, he’s got his face, he’s sitting upright somewhere looking vaguely disappointed, and he’s doing great.
There’s something genuinely reassuring about that. Jimothy doesn’t know he looks like a guy who commutes. He just is.
10. He proves that sometimes the internet gets things exactly right
For every weird viral moment that makes zero sense, there’s a Jimothy. An actual, legitimate reason for collective joy. Something genuinely funny that isn’t mean, isn’t political, isn’t complicated — it’s just a raccoon who looks like he owns a sensible sedan and has a lot of thoughts about the HOA.
Jimothy is proof that sometimes the internet finds the exact right thing and goes absolutely feral for it, and that’s okay. That’s good, even. We need more Jimothy energy in this world.
Look, I don’t make the rules. Jimothy showed up looking like a person in a raccoon costume, the internet collectively lost its mind, and now here we are writing our third post about him because we love him and we want to get it right.
If you’ve never actually looked up a Jimothy video, go do that right now. You’ll be back in four minutes having watched it eleven times and texted it to at least three people. That’s just how Jimothy works.
He’s built different. We’re all better for it.
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