This is, without a doubt, the most wonderful, cute, endearing, adorable, delightful thing that has ever occurred on Twitter.
In June of 2020, a Japanese artist who goes by the moniker ‘Dr. Moricky’ tweeted a picture she painted of a cat all tucked up in bed, its little paws two tiny dabs of paint poking out over the pink bedsheets.
The cat, whose smiling face is the pinnacle of artistic depictions of contentment and happiness, is what art historians might classify as “a sleepy little guy.”
A Spanish-speaking user with the handle ‘labrujitaverdee’ (the little green witch) responded: “a mimir.”
Dr. Moricky replied: “What does Mimir mean?”
labrujitaverdee explained: “It comes from ‘dormir’ [meaning] ‘sleep’. ‘A mimir’ is like a baby version in Spanish of saying ‘I’m going to sleep’.”
In English, one might say “nighty-night,” for example.
Dr. Moricky responded: “I understood the word. Thank you for teaching me!”
She then declared that “this picture is ‘a mimir’,” to which labrujitaverdee replied: “Yeah it is! Love your work, keep it up.”
Already a wholesome interaction, but then…
A week later, Dr. Moricky tweeted another painting. This one depicted a couple of the sleepy little guys — one a bear, I believe, and the other either a rabbit or a cat — cozied up together, their eyes glinting.
With the painting, she wrote: “two mimir.”
The artist had understood their character to be ‘a mimir’, as in, a single mimir, and, when painting two of them together, had addressed them as multiple mimir (plural same as singular).
This charming interaction was quickly ushered in to the pantheon of Spanish-language memes. Artists drew their own takes, ranging from other cute animals to memes and ships of popular fictional characters.
People say it aloud, too. I learned of “two mimir” one night when Kass and I had already turned out the lights and were almost asleep. She said it, I asked what she meant, the lights came back on, and five minutes later my life had been changed.
And yes, there are more than two mimir. You could get three mimir, as in this Pokémon illustration by artist ‘rookruff’:
You might even be able to get four mimir. There are, potentially, infinite mimir.