Chapter 1

In April 2006, a fifteen-year-old Catie created an account on the popular anime-themed social networking site Gaia Online with the rather inconspicuous user name MoldyLunchboxx.

Following a year-long absence, she returned in late 2007 and notified everyone, va much posting, that she had come back. At the end of the first week in 2008, Cate altered her user name to the simpler form now known as Boxxy and began recording her first two videos.

Boxxy's Gaia Online profile.

The first was entitled "FOAR 4DD1 FRUM BOXXY." The 4DD1 in question was a shortened version of the user name 4DM1RAL_AWESOME, an online friend of Cate's and a fellow Gaia Online user. The video came about as the result of a promise that she had made to him and was intended to be a simple and amusing shout-out using her extremely hyperactive onscreen persona, Boxxy.

The remainder of the video consisted of Boxxy talking at some length about the way that she and 4DD1 interacted online, the fact that she overused black eye liner, and that if she knew anyone else on Gaia, all that he or she had to do was ask and she would make a separate shout-out video for them.

Boxxy posts on Gaia.

This offer was clearly accepted by another Gaia Online user who wished to be called Ant as shown in Catie's second video, entitled "FOAR ANT FRUM BOXXY." In this video, she more or less talked about many of the same things that she did in her other video. However, she revealed that Ant was the first person who she had ever met on Gaia. She digressed to describe how Ant and others frequented the notorious site 4chan, how Ant's avatars were very intriguing, and even drew an angry cartoon face with black and red markers to be a depiction of Ant.

This was the video wherein another one of Catie's friends was mentioned: Pocky. Boxxy gossiped in an indiscreet manner about Ant and Pocky's relationship and that it had ended. This same Pocky later became a source of interest to various members of 4chan and was again referenced in Catie's third video.

Upon close examination of Catie's first video, Boxxy is clad in a black, short-sleeved T-shirt with the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninite characters, Ignignokt and Err, on the front with a gold chain prominently displayed around her neck. Her dark brown hair was cut in a shoulder-length pageboy bob with the edges flipped out; a barely discernible, black Alice band kept her parted bangs from falling on her face. Along with fairly heavy makeup applied to her pale complexion, thick lines of kohl encircled her eyes. What made her stand out even more was that she was seated in what appeared to be a darkened, cluttered office, as evidenced by the printer in the background to her left, with the glow of the computer screen being the only light source. This had the peculiar effect of drawing attention to her face; the eyes in particular.

BoxxyBabe, the original YouTube channel.

In her second video, Catie wore a white, cotton T-shirt with a silver necklace and pendant around her neck. Her bob was suddenly a lighter brown and her skin tone changed from pale to a distinctive shade of buff. Even though it was still winter in many parts of North America, the fact that Catie was suddenly sporting both a lighter hair color and a darker skin tone seemed to indicate that she lived in a state which still received large amounts of sun and heat.

The two said videos were uploaded to her YouTube account under the user name BoxxyBabe. Records indicate that her last log-in on both Gaia and YouTube took place between the months of February and April 2008.

In December 2008, after sitting undisturbed on her channel, the video "FOAR 4DD1 FRUM BOXXY" was embedded onto the unremarkable site I-Am-Bored.com by an anonymous user.

Link is posted on I-Am-Bored.com.

Within twenty-four hours, the comments page was filled with over 125 comments across eight pages. Only adding to the intrigue already surrounding Boxxy, the video then strangely disappeared without a trace or explanation. The authors of this blog find it very likely that Catie herself was the one who posted and subsequently removed the embed on the site.

Boxxy deleting her videos.

Screen shots of the video began appearing on the well-known image board 7chan coupled with fervent discussions about who the girl was and if whether she was afflicted with any ailments such as Attention Deficit Disorder or Tourette's Syndrome based upon her jerky, hyperactive manner.

An anonymous user then embedded a copy of the video on the near identical image board 4chan. It was posted at the top of an endurance test thread on the /b/ board, the birthplace of many of the Net's most famous memes. Those who could sit through the whole video without flipping out in a fit of annoyance or simply give up were labeled as experts. Many present at that time described the whole escapade as "the most insane display we've ever seen on YouTube" and "the cutest girl we've ever seen." This adoration would soon mark the beginning of the Boxxy phenomenon.

 

Why did Catie film her videos using her hyperactive Boxxy persona?