Boxxy

Boxxy or boxxybabee is an Internet meme created by a series of YouTube videos of an American girl who refers to herself as Boxxy and became highly popular on 4chan as well as YouTube itself during January 2009. Her videos have been described as “crazy” and have been the subject of much speculation over the reasons behind their making, or the state of the girl’s mental disposition at the time the videos were recorded, given their nonsensical and manic nature. She has been described as “the new Lonelygirl15” by one outlet, and comparisons to rickrolling and Chris Crocker have also been drawn. Topics covered in Boxxy’s most famous video include her assertion that she is not on drugs, her eyeliner, two males named Steve and Brandon, the Beatles, the film itself, her supposed husband, her awareness of her digression during the video, war, and macaroni.

The girl known as Boxxy was a user of Gaia Online and had only uploaded three videos in total to YouTube. Within a week, her videos had gained over a million views, reaching two million by January 20. Her YouTube channel was also the most subscribed to during January 2009. On 4chan, the videos caused a great amount of strife when posts related to them became excessive on the site’s /b/ imageboard, eventually leading to a DDoS attack against 4chan because of Boxxy, described as a “civil war” on one of the world’s biggest Web sites.

Boxxy has divided opinion on 4chan, between those who greatly like and those who greatly dislike her, and this was the cause of the DDoS attack. Boxxy also led to notable speculation and reflection over the very nature of Internet memes, why they occur, why they exist, and how they will be seen in the future, especially given the fact that they make their subjects famous for being famous.