Blueberry Cat

Submission 9,300

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

About

Blueberry Cat, also known as Cats If They Were Blueberries or Cats If They Were a Blueberry, refers to a Photoshop image of a blueberry with a cat's face on top of multiple blueberries. The original image was created in 2018 by the Instagram account @cats_in_food. The image gained meme traction going into the 2020s, specifically peaking in 2023 on Instagram, TikTok and Reddit, among other platforms, predominantly within Hood Irony videos and memes.

Origin

On March 24th, 2018, Instagram^[1] user @cats_in_food posted a photoshopped image of a blueberry with a cat's face. The image gained roughly 10,900 likes in five years (shown below).

Despite a 2018 origin, the image didn't receive meme attention until X/Twitter ^[2] user @VideoGamerJoup9 posted the image on February 20th, 2022, captioning it, "Nintendo then: 'We're a family friendly company!' / Cats if they were a blue berry:" gaining roughly 34,500 likes in one year (shown below).

Spread

The aforementioned tweet gained reposts across social media in the month that followed its upload, including a post to /r/okbuddyretard. ^[3] The "cats if they were a blueberry" format started to spread, evident in a post shared by X^[4] user @StarkyTheSalad on March 7th, 2022, gaining over 470 likes in a year (shown below, left). On March 27th, Instagram^[5] user @tumor.face posted a similar meme, gaining over 300 likes in one year (shown below, right).

Going into 2023, video creators started to use the Blueberry Cat image in absurd "hood irony" content. For instance, on June 19th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @illegalbugtrader posted a moldy SpongeBob video that randomly transitioned into the Blueberry Cat image, gaining roughly 2.4 million plays and 508,700 likes in three months (shown below, left). @illegalbugtrader continued the trope in the weeks that followed, including a TikTok^[7] posted on June 25th that followed both the SpongeBob Tries to Sell Candy in Memphis and The Bluetooth Device Is Ready To Pair memes, gaining roughly 1.5 million plays and 281,500 likes in three months (shown below, right).

On June 27th, 2023, Instagram^[8] user @meme._.tacos reposted the aforementioned video, gaining roughly 96,500 likes in three months. TikToker^[9] @illegalbugtrader continued the trope going into September 2023, within a Yeah We Fancy Like Denny's video.