Pills That Make You Stare

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About

Pills That Make You Stare refers to a series of photoshopped image macros based on an image of a cat taking a pill and then staring at a wall from Wikihow. Online, people have replaced the name of the pills and what the cat stares at, typically using the phrasal template "Pills That Make You Stare at X."

Origin

On October 22nd, 2011, Wikihow^[1] published a page entitled "How to stop a male cat from spraying." On April 22nd, 2016, Wikivisuals added a series of images illustrating the instructions for caring the cats. Two of the images, one of a cat being fed a pill and another of a cat staring at a wall while thinking about another cat became the basis for the meme.

On August 19th, 2017, Twitter ^[10] user @platinumbarf posted the earliest known version of the meme. In the top panel, they posted the picture of the cat being fed pills with the words "Pills that make you stare at the wall" on the pillbox. Underneath, there is a picture of the cat staring at a wall. The post (shown below) received more than 630 retweets and 1,400 likes in one month.

Precursor

Powder That Makes You Say 'Yes' refers to an exploitable comic strip in which the character Plastic Man says "Yes" while ingesting the contents of a box labeled "Powder that makes you say yes."

Spread

That day, Redditor ^[11] ehchinoo posted the picture to the /r/me_irl subreddit, receiving more than 500 points (99% upvoted).

On August 21st, Redditor^[3] Gayabe posted a photoshopped version of the images stacked on top of each other in the /r/bonehurtingjuice subreddit. In the first panel, the pills given to the cat is renamed "Pills that make you stare at the wall." The image underneath shows the cat staring at the wall without thinking about the other cat. The post (shown below) received more than 840 points (99% upvoted) in one month.

The next day, the Facebook ^[4] account 9000 Rare Blini cats posted the meme, where it received more than 3,600 reactions, 1,700 comments and 12,000 shares. On August 24th, Tumblr ^[5] user depsidase posted the meme, receiving more than 13,000 notes

Over the next month, people continued to photoshop the images. On August 23rd, Imgur ^[6] user underwearjackpot posted the meme (shown below, left) with the text "pills that make you stare at a disappointing storyline" and the cat staring at a Dragon Ball Z poster. The post received more than 950 views.

Two weeks later, on September 8th, Facebook^[7] user k3y3fsi posted a variation that reads "Pills that make you stare at garbage" with the cat staring at a "Sunday Pinsaya" poster. The post (shown below, center) received more than 2,400 reactions and 230 shares.

The following week, on September 17th, Facebook^[8] user amphetameme2 posted a version that reads pills that taste like lemon and the cat with an image of someone's eyes tearing from eating a lemon from The Simpsons. The post (shown below, right) received more than 6,000 reactions, 1,200 comments and 4,100 shares in two days.

On September 18th, Redditor^[9] fib0nacci112358 posted a version that reads "Pills that make you stare at garbage" and features the cat staring the words "elf on a shelf" memes in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The post (shown below) received more than 400 points (99% upvoted) in 24 hours.