Raymond

About

Raymond is a character from the Animal Crossing series of life-simulation games published by Nintendo. After being revealed that he would be included in Animal Crossing: New Horizons the character started gaining popularity online, to the point people started to sell him so other people could add him to their islands.

Origin

Raymond was first introduced in Animal Crossing: New Horizons,^[1] released March 20th, 2020. In the game, he is portrayed as a grey smug cat with heterochromia, and has a very polite, kind, and gentleman-like personality.^[2]

Spread

Four days before the initial release of the game, Twitter user crossingchannel^[3] revealed the name and the looks of Raymond. In response to the tweet, people started to claim their love for the character and their intention to add him to their own islands. The tweet gained over 2,900 likes and 600 retweets (shown below).

Raymond in a Maid dress

On March 25th, 2020, Twitter user mirwae^[4] shared a clip of his villager gifting a maid dress to Raymond, who then happily changes into it. The video gained over 72,000 likes and 21,000 retweets in the following weeks.

After the initial video was shared, multiple accounts online started to share drawing and clips of the character wearing the dress, while other people online started to wonder if making your villagers crossdress was morally right. On March 26th, 2020, Twitter user fluffysmolcloud^[5] uploaded an image of the popular Dick Flattening meme featuring Raymond and a female villager, gaining over 16,200 likes and 3,600 retweets in the following weeks (shown below, left). A few days later, user redteatango^[6] shared an image where Raymond exclaims his frustration to being forced to wear the maid dress and dance, getting 28,500 likes and 9,400 retweets in the following days (shown below, right).

eBay auctions

The popularity of the character lead to people to try to sell him on online stores like eBay by pushing him to leave their islands and the customer then invites him to their own. On April 9th, 2020, Twitter user ACWorldBlog^[7] uploaded a screenshot of an eBay auction selling the character for 350 dollars (or 600 for an instant purchase) and telling other people to calm down, getting 7,900 likes and 1,000 retweets in less than a day (shown below).

Example Images

Search Interest

External References