Cat Eating Then Looking Up

Submission 34,077

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

About

Cat Eating Then Looking Up refers to a video and GIF of a cat on a livestream eating food, looking up at the camera after a donation and then staring at the viewer. The viral video spread on TikTok and Twitter / X, among other platforms, in late 2023, predominantly spreading as a reaction GIF and exploitable meme. The video, and other Cat Feeder Camera videos similar to it, came from the Chinese app Hello Street Cat, which is a 24/7 livestream app in which cameras are placed in stray "cat houses" where food is dispensed after user donations. One cat, nicknamed Mr. Fresh (MrFresh), gained a cult following among users. In early 2024, internet users compiled multiple stream clips from the app, likening the cats to being mass-produced in a factory. Mr. Fresh, and the others like the Hedgehog Eating Cat Food, then gained collective fan art, memes and redraws.

Origin

On October 8th, 2023, TikToker^[1] @catzoo1 posted a video of a cat eating and then looking up at a camera on stream, gaining over 16.4 million plays and 2.1 million likes in three months (shown below, left). Also on October 8th, TikToker^[2] @annettesullivan posted the same video with a wider crop, earning over 2.7 million plays and 445,600 likes in three months (shown below, right).

The screen recording was seemingly taken from a viral video on the Chinese video app Weibo. The livestream with the cat was from a different Chinese app called Hello Street Cat^[3] that livestreams so-called "cat houses" where user donations feed stray cats (example image shown below).

Mr. Fresh

On October 10th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @annettesullivan posted a video in which she introduced an orange cat named Mr. Fresh who was nicknamed such because he only eats freshly dropped food. The video earned over 1.8 million plays and 237,900 likes in three months (shown below).

Spread

The videos of the cat eating and Mr. Fresh quickly spread across social media in October 2023, such as Instagram.^[5] On October 11th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @annettesullivan posted a video of Mr. Fresh side-eying the camera, gaining over 440,400 plays and 51,700 likes in three months (shown below, left).

On October 14th, 2023, TikToker^[7] @antdecant posted one of the first known memes with the Cat Eating Then Looking Up video, captioning it, "Me buying more fragrances After saying I'm not going to buy anymore," receiving roughly 146,300 plays and 6,600 likes in three months (shown below, right).

Fan art started to emerge soon after, such as a re-animation uploaded by TikToker^[7] @bismay_draws on October 18th, 2023, gaining over 921,600 plays and 139,400 likes in three months (shown below).

On October 29th, 2023, Tenor^[8] user Catpis posted a GIF of the Cat Eating Then Looking Up video (shown below, left).

On November 10th, X^[9] user @archer_uwu made a GIF with the Cat Eating Then Looking Up video, placing it inside a fridge that Fortnite characters opened. The GIF received over 24,000 likes in two months (shown below, right).

Going into late November 2023, the Cat Eating Then Looking Up video gained increased usage as a GIF on X, evident in a tweet shared by X^[10] user @femceldorito on November 26th, 2023, who proclaimed how much they loved the GIF, gaining over 14,000 likes in two months (shown below).