About

Cheetah and Cub is an image macro and object-labeling format depicting a cheetah and a cub that's typically used in three panels. The first panel depicts a female adult cheetah looking out into the distance with her cub sitting next to her, then a follow-up panel of the cheetah cub looking alarmed before the last panel zooms in on the cub for an exaggerated text reaction.

Origin

The original image of the cheetah and cub was first uploaded to the JohnathanAngelaScott^[1] Photocenter by photographer Johnathan Scott on September 3rd, 2009, where it was titled "Cheetah with cub in Masai Mara" (shown below).

The first time the Cheetah with Cub was used as a meme took place on January 17th, 2020, in the subreddit /r/memes by Redditor 1punman_,^[2] depicting the cheetah telling her cub about almost being spotted by lions, earning 51,100 upvotes in two years (shown below).

Spread

The Cheetah and Cub template began to immediately spread around Reddit from there. That same day on January 17th, 2020, another version of the meme was posted to the /r/Funny subreddit by Redditor Pizzaknife,^[3] this time having the Cheetah Cub being the setup for the meme, asking its mother for "crab rangoon" and earning 12,000 upvotes in two years (shown below).

On February 4th, 2022, a different take on the meme was posted to the subreddit /r/WholesomeMemes by Redditor mcclonkster,^[4] in which the cheetah cub is the viewer who is very happy at the boss calling for a snow day off work, earning 1,600 upvotes in two months (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References