Alien Cat

Submission 36,144

Part of a series on Cats. [View Related Entries]

About

Alien Cat is a photograph of a white cat with a black ear staring directly at the camera in a manner resembling an ID photo. A Staring Animals format, the image has been photoshopped and used as a reaction image, with edits giving the cat large, completely black eyes similar to that of an alien, becoming viral in 2022.

Origin

On November 14th, 2021, Twitter^[1] user @takeru0321neco posted a photograph of their cat Takeru staring directly at the camera, writing, "managed to take something like an ID photo." The tweet received over 800 retweets and 5,700 likes in nine months (photograph and tweet shown below, left and right).

On January 1st, 2022, VK,^[2] Telegram and Twitter meme page eternal classic posted the image, captioned, "repost to waste 151kb of internet's data." On VK, the post gained over 1,100 reactions, 240 shares and 37,000 views in seven months (shown below).

Spread

The image caption gained viral spread in the following months through reposts. For example, on January 11th, 2022, an unknown Redditor^[3] posted the image to the /r/196 subreddit, gaining over 1,100 upvotes. On April 16th, 2022, Tumblr^[4] user modogoblion posted a cropped version of the image that received over 14,000 likes and reblogs in four months.

Starting at least in early February 2022, the cropped photograph saw use as a Staring Animals meme, with users posting it as a reaction.^[5]^[6]

On February 11th, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @bitchassdeer posted a two-panel meme that used the cropped photograph together with a version in which the cat's ears were edited out (authorship of the edit unconfirmed). The tweet gained 5 retweets and over 30 likes in six months (edit and tweet shown below, left and right). The edit also saw use as a Staring Animals format on Twitter.^[8]^[9]

Prior to May 23rd, 2022, an unknown user created an edit of the image that removed the cat's nose and gave it completely black eyes resembling those of grey aliens (shown below). On March 23rd, Twitter^[10] user @FrootInsect made the earliest found post with the image, using it as a reaction image. On May 27th, Tumblr^[11] user scenepussyhair posted the image, with the post gaining over 1,000 likes and reblogs in two months.

In the following months, more edits of the photographs were shared on Twitter, Tumblr and other social media. For example, starting in mid-June 2022, a version giving the cat a human nose and lips received viral spread (shown below, left).^[12]^[13] Starting in late June 2022, a version giving the cat even larger "alien" eyes was also circulated (shown below, right).^[14]^[15]