Why is the Yahoo answers mascot a hamster in a karate uniform?

The legend of the hamster; the real story:

The one-time leader of the Yahoo!Answers development team used to call the group to meetings by turning on an electric toy hamster he had on his desk. Because of this, taking the two letters from Y!A and combining them with hamster, the Y!AT (Yahoo Answers Team) became known as the Yamsters. They used to use an image of the actual toy hamster as their mascot, but because of possible trademark infringement, they had to draw a cartoon one. He is the one now seen on the blog.

I guess that hamsters hang out with scientists and the uniform represents that he is training for something. I dont think Yahoo is as smart as the people answering or asking or just people in general.

There's a great answer at the link below from Calimecita, which I will copy and paste below as info only. NOTE: I claim no credit for the info below; it's merely copied here for ease of reading. Show Calimecita the props for the info (link to Calimecita's info at the bottom of this post):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200607...

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To add to MonkeyMini's great answer, when YA had just started, last December, they did not have their current "smilie" logo. The avatar they used in their blog and here at YA during those first Beta days was a photograph of a Hamster, who was adopted as mascot and began to be known as the Karate Hamster, Ninja Hamster, Kung Fu Hamster, or Yamster (and extensively, the members of the YA Team are also the YAmsTers). This was a real toy that sings and dances or something like that.

The original Yamster:

http://www.bushidocanada.com/images/acce...

In those "old days" the users were relatively few, and we sort of knew each other. The Hamster was widely commented at the YAT blog and the forum.

The competition mascot, Frank the Frankfurter, was the creation of one of those first users, cblrdy. Cblrdy took all the opportunities he could to publicize Frank (with the aid of other users who used to add the "Vote for Frank!" phrase to their answers):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Unfortunately, the poor sausage died an untimely death at the hands of a dog (LOL).

Here's the original Frank Saga, by cblrdy:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-s.5q_akye...

Meanwhile, our beloved original Karate Hamster was thriving, until one unfortunate day when some forgotten user asked about the insignificant issue of the mascot's copyright. Shortly afterwards, the original Yamster was spirited away and the green smilies appeared. The Team members told us that it was time to acquire a more "professional" avatar, as they were progressing toward the end of the beta phase.

Some time later, the new, Yahoo-copyrighted, cartoon Yamster made its debut.

This new, stylized version has different attires and expressions (such as the Oops! Yamster that appeared during the huge YA downtime event). Another YA user, Liz, made additional versions of the Yamster (such as the punk yamster, the glam yamster, etc). Although the original forum thread seems to have been deleted :-( and Liz hasn't been around for a while, these are her Yamster versions:

http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/deathshadow94...

I'm sure more of the "veterans" will have stories to share :-)

It's been nice *sigh*... but I feel old now :-P

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Here's Calimecita's info; pls show the real poster of this info some love!

http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=As_t5Td0X...

Nobody's expecting a hamster. Plus, Yahoo! got the hamster cause it's the only thing that can take on the Geico lizard and the Aflak duck at once.

It used to be a different hamster, who wore a different uniform. But the karate hamster beat him up and took his job.

well i think that there is a hamster because there are horses, birds, etc. and a hamster was the only thing that will be different its in a karate costume because they wanted it to stand out

Mainly because if their is a nuclear holocaust, there will be two things that will survive. Cockroaches and hamsters, and no offense to cockroaches, but I think kung fu hamsters would whoop cockroaches in a second.

I'm not sure why, but its a cute hamster. It kinda reminds me of the kungfu singing hamster my sister has.

hamsters will raise & rule the world!

and yahoo answers is just the first step!

Beats the friggin' daylights out of me. I think it's the armband. Suggestive of the SS, as in "Vee haff vays of suspending your account."