WoW, RuneScape, and Squirrel With a Gun All Pay Tribute to Jimothy the Raccoon

A Seattle Raccoon Becomes the Internet’s Latest Obsession

It has been less than a week since Instagram user Kiana Hall posted a video of a small raccoon wandering around Seattle, and somehow Jimothy, as she named him, has already made it onto the radars of Blizzard Entertainment, the Old School RuneScape team, and the studio behind Squirrel With a Gun. Hall told The Seattle Times she landed on the name because he simply looked like a Jimothy. Honestly, hard to argue.

Jimothy’s appeal comes largely from his distinctive appearance. Many observers believe he has Short Spine Syndrome, a rare condition that gives him an unusually compact frame. Locals in Seattle had apparently noticed this particular raccoon before, but Hall’s video was the spark. Millions of social media impressions, hundreds of fan edits, and a wave of coverage followed in short order. Fan art accounts started “jimothy maxxing.” BossLogic posted that he would go to war for the little guy. The Seattle Mariners’ fan channel dubsea welcomed him to the big leagues. The usual internet machinery hummed along at full speed.

Game Developers Jump In

The part that made this story land in gaming circles happened fast. Blizzard’s official World of Warcraft account posted a render showing what Jimothy might look like living inside Azeroth, described by IGN as a high-effort tribute. Old School RuneScape followed with its own version, admittedly rougher around the edges but still charming by the account’s own admission.

Then there was Dee Dee Creations, the studio behind 2024’s Squirrel With a Gun, which put together a 43-second video tribute arming Jimothy and sending him into their game. Dee Dee later clarified in a follow-up post that the clip was built on a quick mod of a pre-existing raccoon skin, not something players could actually download. So the raccoon is armed, he is on screen, and he is technically not available to anyone.

None of the three represent real in-game content. They are social media posts, warm and clearly made with care, but posts nonetheless.

Fans Are Already Drawing Up the Petition

Predictably, the community response has been immediate and specific. World of Warcraft players did not just ask for Jimothy generally. One player suggested, as reported by IGN, that the developers should “make him a battle pet, and a big Jim for a mount.” RuneScape players lobbied for a Jimothy Rocky transmog. Another commenter asked that if Jimothy does get added to any game, he be made unattackable, appending a sad face emoji that felt entirely appropriate.

There is something genuinely funny about how quickly fans moved from “oh that’s cute” to highly specific mechanical requests. Battle pet. Mount. Transmog. Protected NPC status. These are not vague wishes. These are feature requests with internal logic.

For now, Jimothy exists as a cultural moment rather than a playable character. Whether any studio decides to make the official move is still an open question, but the fact that three separate development teams posted tributes within 24 hours of each other suggests the raccoon has cleared whatever informal threshold the industry uses for taking a meme seriously. Whether Blizzard turns that render into an actual battle pet, or the RuneScape team greenlight that transmog, is genuinely worth watching.