AI Cat Stories / Sad Meow Meow Song

Submission 522

Part of a series on AI Art. [View Related Entries]

About

AI Cat Stories or Sad Meow Meow Song refers to a series of viral videos and slideshows starring orange tabby cats, generated by artificial intelligence, and set to a version of Billie Eilish's song "What Was I Made For" in which the words of the vocals are swapped out for an AI-generated series of meows. The videos often centered around a larger, older cat called "Chubby" in captions and a smaller cat (presumably his child) called "Chubby Jr." and tend to narrate hardships faced by the two felines. Responses to the videos included users making reaction videos of their toddlers crying to the content and lip-synching the meowing song while wearing a cat-ear filter.

Origin

There are several AI art cat story accounts on TikTok and most of them seem to have been launched in January 2024. @MPMinds (875,200 followers) appears to have been the first to use the meowed version of "What Was I Made For" in the video (seen below, left), which was posted on April 13th, 2024, and earned over 3.7 million likes and 38 million views over the course of two months.^[1]

Their video (seen below, right) from February 10th, introduced the AI cat as a mascot calling itself "Chubby," speaking in a British accent. Chubby boasted of gaining "over 300,000 followers in less than a month, and millions of views on my content," and offering users the opportunity to "purchase my photos and videos to replicate my success. Love you all."^[2]

The other highly visible AI cat story account is Cat'slife, or @la.team.france (789,100 followers), which also posted a variety of AI cat-related content, including a post^[3] (seen below, left) advocating for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war, which received over 6,600 likes and 147,000 views in four months after being posted on February 11th, 2024, and one depicting a small cat undergoing a fitness transformation (seen below, right) that received over 5.1 million likes and 40 million views in a month after being posted on May 22nd.^[4]

Other AI cat story accounts include @lexslira1 (145,000 followers), @puffo.il.gatto (112,000 followers), which seem to be in the same style as @MPMinds and @la.team.france, while @cute.stories.5 (148,800 followers) @cat_tommmy (349,900 followers) appear to have a more Pixar-like aesthetic. All follower counts are current as of June 2024.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

Spread

The AI cat story accounts saw continuous viral spread throughout the spring of 2024, routinely posting videos that received hundreds of thousands or millions of views on TikTok. Posting on associated Instagram accounts with smaller followings also received many views.^[9]

Children React To AI Cat Stories

In May 2024, users began posting videos of their toddlers crying while watching AI cat story videos, particularly ones that used the meowed version of "What Was I Made For" as their sound. @b.ajasiii posted a video to TikTok (seen below, left) of their child weeping in response to an @MPMinds video on June 16th, 2024, receiving over 20.9 million likes and 136.2 million views over the course of four days.^[10] Commenters brought up that Billie Eilish, the singer of "What Was I Made For" reposted the video, and it did appear under Eilish's reposts as of June 20th.^[11]

The earliest viral video of a child crying while watching AI cat story content, however, appears to be the one by @evgeshageiden (seen below, right) posted on April 11th, showing what sounds to be an Eastern European boy weeping over a YouTube Short on an iPad. The video received over 2.3 million likes and 22.2 million views over the course of two months.^[12]

Adults Lip Synch To Meow Cover Of "What Was I Made For"

A video posted on June 6th, 2024, by TikToker @cherrpx showing a group of young people lying on the floor together with cat ear filters added to their heads and lip-synching the song together received over 872,000 likes and 7.4 million views over two weeks (seen below, left).^[13]

Another video (seen below, right) depicting adults lip-synching to the song was posted by TikToker @mikeyyk88 on June 14th, receiving over 4.2 million views and 459,000 likes over the course of a week, as well as a comment from the brand account of Taco Bell Canada saying "This is so emotional." This video featured a filter reshaping the singer's head into a smooth egg rather than the cat ear filter.^[14]