Gremlin Risitas — Who is El Risitas? (Part 1)
[Gremlin sits down with wine, already chuckling]
Before we talk about the Gremlin laugh, we need to talk about the man who started it all: Juan Joya Borja, better known as El Risitas — “The Giggles.”
The Man and the Myth
Born in Seville, Spain in 1956, El Risitas was a comedian and actor. But he wasn’t polished like a Hollywood star — he was raw, scrappy, and human. What made him famous wasn’t a stand-up routine or a blockbuster role. It was his laugh.
In 2007, on a Spanish talk show called Ratones Coloraos, hosted by Jesús Quintero, Risitas told a story about working as a kitchen helper. The story itself? Simple, absurd:
- He left a pile of paella pans in the sea overnight to soak.
- When he came back in the morning, the tide had gone out.
- All the pans were gone… except one.
What followed wasn’t just laughter. It was legend.
Risitas’s voice went high-pitched. He wheezed between words, slapping the table. Tears ran down his cheeks. His body convulsed as he struggled to breathe. Quintero, the host, collapsed into laughter too, unable to hold composure.
That clip hit the internet in June 2007. And the world never let go of it.
The Meme Before the Meme
Years before TikTok trends and Twitter dunks, Risitas’s laugh spread across YouTube. People subtitled the video with absurd “translations” — making him rant about broken computers, bad business plans, or gaming disasters.
He became the face of the internet’s inside joke.
By 2015, the meme exploded when Apple launched its new MacBook. Someone subtitled Risitas as an Apple engineer mocking the laptop’s flaws. That one parody alone pulled millions of views in weeks.
From there, the laugh carried everywhere:
- Tech blunders.
- Political scandals.
- Gaming fails.
- “Behind the scenes” spoofs.
No matter the topic, Risitas’s laugh became the universal soundtrack of exposing absurdity.
The KEKW Emote
By 2019, his laugh had transcended video. On Twitch, Risitas’s face became the KEKW emote — a shorthand for uncontrollable laughter. To this day, it’s been spammed hundreds of millions of times in streams across the world.
Risitas never set out to be a meme. But the laugh was too strong, too human, too perfect to stay in Spain. He became immortal in a way few comedians ever do: not because of words, but because of a wheeze that cut through all language.
Why It Mattered
El Risitas passed away in 2021. But his laugh remains eternal. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just raw, unfiltered recognition of life’s ridiculousness.
That’s why people like me still raise a glass to him. Because that laugh is more than funny — it’s a way of facing the world.
To be continued in Part 2: Why it matters. The Template.
🤣🤣🤣