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The History of Internet Cat Memes | The Birth of Grumpy Cat, Nyan Cat, and Longcat | Why Humans Worship Cats Even Online
In June 2012, a unique exhibition opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, one of the world's premier art museums. The title was "Cats and the Internet." The curator was not an art historian, but an internet culture researcher. On display were not millennia-old artifacts, but cat photos and videos that had been shared millions of times online.
The person giving the opening lecture for that exhibition was the owner of the most famous internet cat at the time. Many of the attendees there must have wondered: Is this important enough to be treated as a serious cultural phenomenon? Cat pictures in an art museum?
If historians look back on this era 30 years from now, they will laugh at that question. Internet cat culture is destined to go down as one of the most widespread and enduring collective cultural phenomena created by humanity from the late 20th to the early 21st century. If the ancient Egyptians enshrined cats in temples, modern humans enshrine them on servers.
Cats Before the Internet — The Prehistory of a Digital Myth
Even before the internet, cats were pop culture icons. In 1940, MGM's Tom and Jerry made their debut. Tom the cat was a character who was constantly outsmarted and overpowered by Jerry the mouse, and this paradox made audiences laugh. Then, in the 1970s, Jim Davis created Garfield, a lazy, sarcastic, fat orange cat who was syndicated in dozens of countries and made his creator a billionaire.
There is a common thread among these characters. They exaggerated the actual traits of cats—their aloofness, laziness, egocentrism, and indifference toward humans—and turned them into humor. The internet explosively expanded on this formula. The biggest difference, however, was this: in traditional media, when someone created cat content, it was passively consumed. On the internet, every cat owner could become a content creator.
The Big Bang of Internet Cats — The Turning Point of 2006
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact date cats began to rule the internet. But the decisive turning point was 2006. This was the year YouTube fully launched its service. Suddenly, anyone could upload and share videos, and one of the most frequently uploaded subjects was cats.
But why cats? There were dogs, babies, and plenty of other animals. Yet, cat videos were shared overwhelmingly more often. Researchers explain this in a few different ways.
Cats could easily be kept in small spaces, making them a more common pet for city dwellers. Their unpredictable behavior created much funnier results when caught on camera. Above all, the special psychological response to cats that had been ingrained in humans for thousands of years seamlessly carried over into the digital space. In 2006, cat videos were one of the most-watched video categories on YouTube. That remains true today.
Longcat — The First Cat Myth Created by the Internet
The first true myth in internet cat history is Longcat. In 2004, a photo was uploaded to the Japanese message board 2channel (2ch). It was a picture of someone holding a cat up, and the cat looked incredibly long. Users began stretching the image using Photoshop. The cat grew to the height of a building, the height of a mountain, the size of the Earth, and eventually the size of the entire universe.
A mythology was even constructed where Longcat stood against an evil black cat named Tacgnol. It became an epic war between the cat defending the universe and the cat trying to destroy it. It wasn't a story penned by a single author; rather, it was a myth collectively forged by thousands of anonymous users.
This is a crucial point. Just as the Egyptian myth of Bastet was created and spread by priests, the internet's cat myths were generated through anonymous collective creation. It was a myth without an author, a story to which everyone contributed.
Nyan Cat — The Greatest Pop Star Made of Pixels
In April 2011, an artist named Chris Torres created an 8-bit pixel cat GIF with a Pop-Tart for a body, modeled after his own cat, Marty. Around the same time, a YouTuber named Saraj00n made a video using the Japanese Vocaloid song "Nyanyanyanya" as background music. These two elements merged. The result was a video of a Pop-Tart cat with a rainbow trailing behind it, flying through space and running endlessly to the sound of "nyan nyan nyan nyan." That was Nyan Cat.
In 2011 alone, this video garnered 79 million views on YouTube, making it the fifth most-watched video on the platform that year. Transcending nationality, language, age, and culture, people all over the world shared the exact same experience while watching this pixelated cat.
In 2021, the original Nyan Cat GIF was auctioned as an NFT and sold for roughly 600,000 dollars. A single pixel cat selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Nyan Cat was not just a simple meme; it was a pop icon of the internet era. If the Beatles were the icons of the radio era, Nyan Cat was the icon of the YouTube era.
Grumpy Cat — The Internet's First Billionaire Cat
The most commercially successful story in internet cat history is Grumpy Cat. On September 22, 2012, a man named Bryan Burden uploaded a photo to Reddit. It was a picture of Tardar Sauce, a cat owned by his sister, Tabatha Bundesen.
This cat always appeared to have a highly disgruntled expression. Her mouth drooped downward, and her brow placement made it look like she was constantly frowning. In reality, this was simply her facial structure, caused by feline dwarfism. The cat herself wasn't disgruntled; she just looked that way.
The photo triggered an immediate, explosive reaction. People added text to the picture, generating thousands of memes. "A face that looks like Monday," "The cat rejecting your party invitation," "The cat that hates everything," and so on. Grumpy Cat became a global superstar overnight.
Her owner, Tabatha, quit her job to become a full-time cat manager. Grumpy Cat signed advertising contracts. Books were published. Calendars were printed. A movie was produced. Major corporations like McDonald's, Krispy Kreme, and Reebok featured Grumpy Cat in their marketing campaigns.
In a 2014 interview, Tabatha revealed that the revenue generated by Grumpy Cat had surpassed 100 million dollars. Grumpy Cat passed away in 2019 at the age of seven. Her obituary was covered by major global news outlets, including CNN, the BBC, and The New York Times. We had officially entered an era where major global media reported on the death of a cat.
Social Media for Butlers — The New Cat Aristocracy Created by Instagram
If Grumpy Cat represents the first generation of internet cats, the cats born on Instagram and TikTok are the second generation.
Lil Bub: A cat whose tongue always hung out due to a congenital anomaly, and who had extra toes (polydactylism). She had a face that looked forever like a kitten's. Lil Bub became a "petfluencer" with millions of Instagram followers. Her owner, Mike Bridavsky, donated millions of dollars from her social media earnings to animal rescue organizations.
Coby the Cat: A cat with striking markings around his eyes that look like perfect eyeliner. He gained massive popularity on Instagram as "the cat with perfect makeup" and amassed millions of followers.
Smoothie the Cat: A British Longhair famous for always striking flawlessly elegant poses in her photos. Earning the nickname "the world's most photogenic cat," she has even collaborated with high-end fashion brands.
The common trait among these cats is that they each possess a unique appearance and personality, which was carefully curated into a consistent digital persona. Cats became celebrities, and their owners became their managers.
Why Cats? — Psychology's Answer
Researchers have seriously analyzed why cats, in particular, are so dominant on the internet. A study published in 2015 by Jessica Moreno and her colleagues at Indiana University analyzed the cat content consumption patterns of 7,000 internet users. The results were fascinating.
People who watched cat videos experienced a decrease in negative emotions and an increase in positive ones. Their energy levels rose. You might assume that watching cat videos during work would lower productivity, but the study showed that it actually increased focus on subsequent tasks.
Cat videos served as a kind of micro-rest—a brief moment to focus on something entirely different, effectively resetting the brain. But why did it have to be cats? Researchers point to a few key factors.
First, uncontrollability: Cats are unpredictable. The surprise effect created by that unpredictability stimulates dopamine release. That sudden jolt of surprise when a cat does something bizarre out of nowhere is the core appeal.
Second, small and cute features: While big cats exist, the human brain instinctively feels a protective urge toward beings with round faces, big eyes, and small noses. This is known as the baby schema (Kindchenschema), and cats fit this profile perfectly.
Third, a safe target for emotional connection: Cats offer pure emotional engagement without the burden of complex relationships or responsibilities. Wishing for a cat's happiness is incredibly easy and lighthearted.
More Followers Than Katy Perry — The Scale of Internet Cats
Let's look at the numbers. As of 2023, the cat account with the most followers on Instagram is Smoothie (@smoothiethecat), boasting over 2.5 million followers. Dedicated cat accounts routinely have larger followings than many human celebrities. If you tally the total views of all cat-related videos on YouTube, the number reaches into the hundreds of billions. Millions of cat-related searches are conducted every single day.
According to a study by a British data analytics firm, over 3 million pieces of cat-related content are shared daily across social media. Reddit's r/cats community has around 32 million members—a number larger than the population of many countries.
While there are running jokes about the sheer percentage of global internet traffic dedicated to cats, looking at the actual, measurable data reveals a scale so massive it almost makes you laugh.
From Egypt to the Internet — 5,000 Years of Continuity
For those who have followed this "Catarot" cat story series from the beginning, the pattern should now be crystal clear. In Egypt, people created cat mummies to offer to the gods. Modern people shoot cat videos to upload to the internet. Egyptians enshrined cats in the temple of Bastet. Modern people create dedicated Instagram accounts for their cats and gather followers. Egyptians shaved their eyebrows in mourning when a family cat died. Modern people leave millions of comments on the obituaries of famous internet cats.
The medium is completely different, but the essence is shockingly similar: treating cats as special beings, sharing their images as a community, and connecting through that shared experience. Humans are doing the exact same thing they did 5,000 years ago. Only now, instead of temple murals, we use internet servers, and instead of hieroglyphics, we use digital pixels.
Do you remember the story of the 10,000-year evolutionary chess game we discussed earlier? The theory that cats hacked the human nurturing instinct using meows, triggered dopamine release with their purring, and fostered obsession through intermittent indifference. Every single one of those strategies works perfectly on the internet, too.
The dopamine release triggered by the unpredictability of a cat video is the digital equivalent of a purr. Grumpy Cat's expressionless face becoming meme fodder is the amplification of feline indifference in the digital space. Nyan Cat looping endlessly in the minds of people worldwide is the digital version of intermittent reinforcement. Cats are manipulating humans flawlessly in the digital realm as well.
How Internet Cats Made the World a Slightly Better Place
Finally, internet cat culture has actually made a tangible contribution to the world. Lil Bub's owner, Mike Bridavsky, donated millions of dollars to charities for animals with special needs using her Instagram revenue. Grumpy Cat leveraged her commercial success to sponsor numerous animal shelters. The internet cat phenomenon has raised awareness for TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) programs and helped normalize the adoption of shelter animals.
In 2013, a TV show called "My Cat from Hell," hosted by cat behaviorist Jackson Galaxy, hit the airwaves. The show documented the rehabilitation of cats facing euthanasia due to severe behavioral issues. It gained massive popularity and played a huge role in popularizing the scientific understanding of feline behavior. The internet's obsession with cats might look like pure, frivolous entertainment, but as a byproduct, the lives of actual cats have vastly improved. It is a wonderfully unintended positive outcome.
What About Cats in the Next 5,000 Years?
When I started this series, I opened with the premise: "Why are cats spiritual creatures? From Egyptian mythology to biological secrets." And now, 30 episodes into this journey, we are talking about a pixelated cat flying through space on a rainbow making "nyan nyan" sounds. A frowning cat that generated 100 million dollars. A cat GIF that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Looking back over 5,000 years of history, one undeniable fact emerges: cats have been present in every space humanity has ever occupied. In Egyptian temples, Celtic villages, Japanese shrines, Ottoman palaces, Antarctic expedition ships, French spacecraft, and now, on the internet.
And in none of those spaces did cats remain mere background animals. They consistently became symbols of something greater. Divinity, boundaries, wisdom, luck, paradox, and today, they serve as a conduit for momentary joy and an outlet for the collective emotions of humanity in the digital age.
Whatever form humanity takes 5,000 years from now, cats will almost certainly be right there with us. Existing in a space built by unimaginable technology, continuing to captivate people for the exact same reasons. Because, after all, that is simply what cats do.
