Have you been hearing and seeing a lot of stuff lately about Glup Shitto in Star Wars discussions? Confused about what exactly is going on?
It’s all a side effect of a few factors, but it wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Disney acquiring Star Wars and wishing to get as much content out of it as humanly possible. It’s a strategy that has seen mixed results. Some of the content has been loved, such as The Mandalorian, some has been highly divisive such as The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens.
The strategy does however, also require fans to have an inordinate amount of knowledge about the franchise for every new entry.
Who is Glup Shitto?
Beginning its life on Tumblr after the release of The Mandalorian, user gomjabbar described the phenomenon that seems to pop up whenever a new Star Wars thing is announced, and the series’ penchant for reintroducing obscure characters that only diehards seem to know of.
That one in particular referred to the return of Ahsoka and Boba Fett, which then took on another life during The Book of Boba Fett. Perhaps inspired by Red Letter Media’s prequel trilogy reviews which mocked the various names of Star Wars characters, such as retitling the on-the-nose evil General Grievous to even more blatantly antagonistic Admiral Bone-to-Pick.
The meme evolved from there, with people later using it to just describe nearly any alien or background feature in Star Wars. A weird alien shows up? Glup Shitto. Ancient Jedi master? Glup Shitto. New villain? Glup. Shitto.
The meme has striking similarity to the Graggle Simpson hoax that spread again on the internet in late May/early June 2022. As the age of post-irony and post-truth continues to take over the internet, there’s nothing that symbolizes that more than when hardcore shitposters actively try and reframe pop culture with Graggles and Glups.
There’s even fan art of Glup, proving his popularity.
Whenever there’s talk of future Star Wars spin-offs of lesser known characters, you’ll likely see several mock-ups of “Glup Shitto: A Star Wars Story”, or “Glup Shitto, coming soon to Disney Plus“ teasers. The name is also synonymous outside of Star Wars with overly self-referential properties such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Harry Potter. Fantasy is filled with Glup Shittos, for better or worse.
