Jank Boteko

About

Jank Boteko, also known as Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi, refers to a picture of a baby boy with a deformed head who became the subject of memes on TikTok in 2023, predominantly due to TikToker Custom Wood Burning (@customwoodburning) whose fans sent her multiple memes, pictures and items (such as blankets) with the baby on it which she would show on TikTok LIVE. A TikToker named Cat Terdz (@cat_terdz) posted many recordings of the LIVEs. The real name of the baby was Jaxon Buell who was born in late 2014, missing a part of his brain. Buell passed away in 2020. The Jank Boteko meme started on TikTok in 2023, despite memes using photos of the baby surfacing online in the late 2010s.

Origin

Jaxon Buell was born on August 27th, 2014, in Florida with the rare condition microhydranencephaly which resulted in 80 percent of his brain missing at birth.^[1] Photos of Jaxon Buell went viral online, mostly due to the since-deleted Facebook^[2] page WeAreJaxonStrong. Buell passed away at the age of five in 2020.^[1] One photo (shown below) later became known as the Jank Boteko meme.

Prior to the Jank Boteko meme, the image of Buell as a baby was used on 4chan's /b/^[3] as early as 2016. Also, Russian internet users shared memes that featured the photo of Jaxon Buell, commonly paired with a bottom caption reading, "мяу," which translates to "meow" in English. The memes surfaced on VK^[4] and Pinterest ^[5] in 2020 and 2021 (shown below).

The "Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi" meme seemingly started on the TikTok account of @customwoodburning when multiple fans began sending her photos of the baby that she'd reveal on TikTok LIVE. On September 30th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @cat_terdz posted a recording of a then-recent LIVE in which @customwoodburning shuffled through printed photos of the baby, gaining roughly 1 million plays and 162,100 likes in one month (shown below, left).

On October 3rd, 2023, TikToker^[7] @cat_terdz posted another recording of an @customwoodburning LIVE in which she showed a blanket sent to her that had the baby on it with "Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi" written in a bottom caption. The baby also had a star drawn on his forehead. The video received roughly 2.3 million plays and 421,400 likes in three weeks (shown below, right).

Spread

After the viral "Jank Boteko ❤️ Didi" video posted by TikToker^[7] @cat_terdz, memes referencing the baby as Jank Boteko surfaced en masse. For instance, on October 5th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @blue_moon42 posted a duet that revealed a Jank Boteko painting, gaining roughly 38,200 plays and 3,400 likes in 20 days (shown below, left). On October 12th, TikToker^[9] @blairmaisieipadforeigner posted a video of a cake with the phrase on it, gaining roughly 76,000 plays and 9,400 likes in 13 days (shown below, right).

Going into October 2023, TikToker^[10] @cat_terdz continued to post recordings of @customwoodburning's TikTok LIVEs in which she mentioned Jank Boteko.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References