About

Tennis Cat refers to a series of viral videos on TikTok where the viewer can play tennis with a cat who's hitting the tennis ball at the screen. The viewer can hit the ball back by pulling up on the comment section every time the ball approaches them. Alternatively, one can make a racket "stamp" on their Apple iPhone. Tennis Cat videos started on TikTok in mid-2023, based on the precursor Cat Throwing a Brick videos. Predominantly using music from Wii Sports, the trend evolved to cover other sports such as soccer and badminton, among others.

Origin

On April 18th, 2023, YouTuber^[1] OshDubh posted a Cat Throwing a Brick video that showed Biden Blast hitting the brick back at the cat, resembling tennis. The YouTuber also added the tennis "results" music from Wii Sports.^[2] Over the course of four months, the video gained roughly 10,700 views (shown below).

On May 6th, 2023, the video was reposted by TikToker^[3] @czomedy, gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 84,400 likes in three months. The viral repost ultimately led to the original Tennis Cat video, which was posted on July 25th, 2023, by TikToker^[4] @sscare_xx, gaining roughly 14.2 million plays and 2 million likes in two days (shown below).

Spread

Later on July 25th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @thenut124 posted a video that demonstrated how to use the comment section to return the ball, gaining roughly 732,000 plays and 47,300 likes in two days (shown below, left). On July 26th, TikToker^[6] @dedgequin posted a video that demonstrated an alternative method, instead using Apple's "stamp" feature over an image of a tennis racket. The video gained roughly 2.3 million plays and 278,400 likes in one day (shown below, right).

On July 26th, 2023, the Tennis Cat video gained viral reposts on TikTok.^[7][8] In turn, iterations with different sports and different characters began to emerge on the platform. For instance, on July 26th, TikToker^[9] @woermussy posted a video of a "soccer cat," gaining roughly 107,300 plays and 11,600 likes in one day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References