Ballincat43 / Thank You Ballincat43

Submission 11,441

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About

Ballincat43 refers to the TikTok page @ballincaat43 which is a 30core and Pinkcore account that centers on an image of a cat dunking a basketball. The account spawned the phrase "Thank You Ballincat43" which became a spam comment in comment sections across TikTok in mid-2023. Ballincat43 took inspiration from the precursor 30core creator Bludlung who similarly started their videos with "Thank You Bludlung," similar to a hip-hop producer tag. Ballincat43 gained fan accounts and TikTok sounds. Many of the account's edits used videos from TikToker @evilahhfatguy and the "pluh" sound effect.

Origin

On July 13th, 2023, TikToker^[1] @ballincaat43 posted their first video that played with 30core aesthetics reminiscent of TikToker @bludlung. The video also included a screen-recording of a guy on TikTok LIVE saying, "Thank you Ballincat43." Over the course of one month, the video received roughly 4.3 million plays and 889,400 likes (shown below).

The image of the cat dunking a basketball is a photoshop of a real photo of ex-Los Angeles Lakers player Shannon Brown dunking a basketball in 2010 (shown below, left).^[2] The first-discovered posting of the cat dunking a basketball was by Twitter / X^[3] user @RevivalOfPotara on June 2nd, 2022, gaining over 680 likes in two years (shown below, right).

Spread

Going into July 2023, Ballincat43 continued to post similar 30core edits, such as one TikTok^[4] posted on July 14th, 2023, which received roughly 3.9 million plays and 868,000 likes in one month (shown below, left). Ballincat43 then started to use videos from TikToker^[5] @evilahhfatguy, such as a TikTok^[6] posted on July 16th, 2023, which received roughly 977,700 plays and 153,200 likes in one month (shown below, right).

Ballincat43's videos continued to gain viral engagement going into August 2023, with many of the account's videos gaining upwards of 1 million plays. During the same timeframe, Ballincat43 gained fan accounts, evident in a video posted by TikToker^[7] @ballincat43lover43 on August 11th, 2023, which received roughly 940,200 plays and 135,100 likes in six days (shown below, left). On August 14th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @mystery2toxic posted a video about Ballincat43, gaining roughly 506,400 plays and 99,400 likes in three days (shown below, right).

So The Government Says Aliens Are Real, Huh?

Sometime before August 12th, 2023, Ballincat43 posted a video that was later deleted by TikTok. However, they re-uploaded it to TikTok^[9] a few days later on August 15th, earning roughly 9.2 million plays and 1.8 million likes in two days (shown below). The TikTok led with an intro from TikToker^[10] @evilahhfatguy, originally posted on August 2nd, about the then recent U.S. Congressional hearing on the alien whistleblower. It also used the song "Put Your Records On" by Corinne Bailey Rae.^[11]

After the original video was uploaded, it started a TikTok sound^[12] that gained viral usage with over 6,300 videos using it by August 17th, 2023. For instance, TikToker^[13] @imasrealasitgets_ posted a video with the sound on August 13th, gaining roughly 2.4 million plays and 407,500 likes in four days (shown below).

The most viral post using the sound^[12] was a photo slideshow posted by TikToker^[14] @baitboys on August 13th, 2023, which received over 2.8 million plays and 600,400 likes in four days. The slideshow had three photos, showing ex-NBA players Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant being compared to Ballincat43.

Following

By August 17th, 2023, TikToker^[15] @ballincaat43 had amassed roughly 1.1 million followers. The account's Instagram^[16] page had amassed roughly 5,800 followers.