Who is Wapuu?
わぷー（Wapuu) is the official mascot of ja.wordpress.org.
Wapuu History
It all started when Matt Mullenweg (the co-founder of WordPress) went to Japan in 2009. While there the Japanese WordPress community asked him if they could create a mascot. Matt said yes as long as it was GPL licensed and designed by an illustrator who understands the open source community. The community asked Kazuko Kaneuchi, who had experience in creating the Japanese NetBeans mascot, Neko-bean.
Once the design was done a vote was held to decide the name. 67 different names were proposed and the voting began on August 2, 2011. Over 530 votes were cast and “wappy” was the winner. However, it was discovered that there was already a Japanese company using the name wappy so the second place name was chosen, wapuu (わぷー). wapuu was officially unveiled at WordCamp Fukuoka 2011. The WordPress world has never been the same.
WordCamp Philly Wapuu
Since the original Wapuu was born, other WordCamps have created their own versions. Visit the Wapuu Archive to see more.
While at WordCamp London, Brad Williams tweeted Wapuunk to the WordCamp Philly organizers. It was quickly decided that WordCamp Philly needed a Wapuu.
Tracy Levesque, being a fan of all things Kawaii, designed a collection of Wapuu for WordCamp Philly: Rocky Wapuu, Pretzel Wapuu, Cheesesteak Wapuu and Krimpuu.
Look for them at WordCamp Philly this year!
