Baby Yoda of Star Wars and The Mandalorian fame has a new distinction: a spot on Dictionary.com. Baby Yoda aka The Child emerged late last year when The Mandalorian debuted on Disney+. The character helped make the new series a huge success for Disney, prompting the announcement of a season 2 premiere this October. Season 1 of the show focused on the titular Mandalorian bounty hunter protecting The Child from various threats. The Mandalorian is also notable for being Star Wars' first live-action series.
Baby Yoda's popularity has led to a call for merchandise featuring the character, especially around the holiday season. Recently, a Funko Pop Baby Yoda was announced, as well as various other stuffed versions and even one that's life-sized. Fans of The Mandalorian have also shown their love for Baby Yoda on the internet with some disturbing character mashups, such as Baby Yoda's head on The Hulk's body. The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda specifically have had a huge impact on Internet culture over the last few months.
Per Dictionary.com (via CBR), Baby Yoda has been added to the Memes Dictionary section of the online resource as a result. The rather extensive entry describes Baby Yoda as "a character known as the Child in the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian." It also discusses the origin of the character in more depth and gives some examples of memes featuring Baby Yoda. The Memes Dictionary is arguably the most entertaining part of the website, making Baby Yoda's inclusion their especially appropriate. The Memes section also features entries like "Thanks, Obama" and "This is fine," in reference to the oft-shared comic of a dog drinking coffee in a burning house.
The success of The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda may also have led Disney+ to rethink its release strategy for original shows. After The Mandalorian's first season ended, many fans took to Twitter vowing to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions. Since then, Disney has announced release windows for MCU shows The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision, both of which will debut this year. WandaVision's release announcement was especially surprising, given that it was originally supposed to debut in 2021. Some are speculating the show was moved up as part of a push to get more original shows on Disney+ as soon as possible.
With the many memes available on Dictionary.com, it's no surprise that Baby Yoda is among the newest ones added. As the website mentions, The Child has had a big impact on meme culture over the last few months. Even a decade ago it would have been strange to imagine a TV reference like The Mandalorian on a dictionary website, but things have clearly changed since then. It's nice to see Dictionary.com keeping up with the times, especially when it concerns Internet favorite Baby Yoda.
Source: Dictionary.com/CBR