Gigacat

About

Gigacat refers to an image macro of a cute cat dressed as a U.S. Air Force Commander that surfaced on the site Patriots.win in mid-2021 and then 4chan. From there, Gigacat became an exploitable and the subject of redraws on other platforms like Twitter, where meme creators photoshopped Gigacat to look like other people and characters. As a precursor, Gigacat also refers to an image of a muscular, Sphynx cat that surfaced online in mid-2020, in reference to the GigaChad meme, though far less prevalent.

Origin

Precursor Muscular Cat

On June 22nd, 2020, an Imgur ^[1] user named benzcl55 posted a photo of a muscular Sphynx cat looking out a window that, over the course of two years, received roughly 107,00 views and 1,700 upvotes (shown below). On the same day, Redditor StephenHawkings_Legs reposted the photo to /r/nattyorjuice,^[2] a subreddit dedicated to guessing whether bodybuilders are natural or on steroids. In the description of the post, the Redditor wrote, "This cat from a Facebook group I'm in," alluding to a different origin likely posted earlier in the week.

On December 2nd, 2021, Redditor DevilSanji posted the photo to /r/MemeEconomy,^[3] captioning it, "Invest on GigaCat," and subsequently giving the cat the name "GigaCat." The post earned roughly 2,300 upvotes before being deleted by the moderators.

Gigacat Origin

In July 2021, a user named ChelseaHubbell made a post on the Donald Trump centric messageboard Patriots.win.^[4] She attached a photo of a cute cat dressed as a U.S. Air Force Commander, captioning it, "Time to replace the USAF with this," and earning 25 upvotes in eight months. In the comment section, a different user named codesherpa wrote, "That thing is adorable. Commander Gigacat reporting for duty!"

Spread

On July 1st, 2021, Gigacat was posted to 4chan's /his/^[5] messageboard. On July 3rd, 2021, Gigacat was posted to 4chan's /int/^[6] messageboard.

Going into August 2021, Gigacat started to be redrawn en masse to resemble the soldiers of other nations or simply people from other nations in general. Meme creators photoshopped items on Gigacat's face and body and replaced the background with various flags. For instance, one of the first redraws was made my Twitter^[7] user dystopiapro69 on August 9th, 2021, depicting a Roman Gigacat. The image received over 280 likes in seven months (shown below).

On August 19th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user SomeDude__TM posted a mega-thread of Gigacat images he had collected, some of them attributed to him. The four Gigacat images in the first tweet received over 240 likes in seven months (shown below).

On September 19th, 2021, Twitter user SomeDude__TM posted a video compilation of Gigacats, earning over 70 likes in six months (shown below, top). On October 7th, Twitter user SomeDude__TM posted another Gigacat video meme, referencing Schizowave and earning 15 likes in roughly five months (shown below, bottom).

In early 2022, Gigacat redraws started appearing in more abundance coinciding with the increasing tension amid the 2021-2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. For instance, Twitter^[9] user SamaBlepp posted a Denny's employee Gigacat, earning 18 likes in three months (shown below). The tweet also referenced that many Gigacat images were being created and shared primarily on private Discord servers.

Because of the increasing usage of Gigacat memes going into March 2022, Twitter^[10] user SigmaUme created multiple Google Photo folders that housed mass collections of Gigacat memes, videos and GIFs. One gallery, in particular, called "CountryGigacat"^[11] spans from August 15th, 2021, to March 14th, 2022.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References