Tombili / Chill Cat

About

Tombili, also known as Chill Cat, was a cat from Istanbul, Turkey who grew famous for posing in a relaxed nature in a picture that inspired image macros and photoshops.

Origin

Tombili was a cat who lived in Istanbul, Turkey. She was a neighborhood cat, and due to her obesity, did not move around much, and got along very well with people.^[5] According to the Huffington Post,^[4] while many people assumed the cat was male, Tombili was female. The earliest known appearance of the chill cat came on June 6th, 2012, when Buzzfeed^[1] community user okan-art.com uploaded the picture to the site in a post called "Look at This Laid-Back Cat."

Spread

Tombili inspired a spread of LOLcats images^[2] and a Daily Dot^[3] photoshop contest that helped launched him to internet fame. She also grew popular on 9gag, ^[6] where she topped a post of cats sitting in strange positions that gained over 26,000 points.

Death

In August of 2016, Tombili died after battling illness. Shortly after, a poster was put up honoring her memory. However, following a Change.org petition for a more proper tribute signed by over 17,000 people, Istanbul had a statue of Tombili created by local artist Seval Şahin placed in the spot where Tombili's iconic photo was taken.^[3]

The statue was covered by Huffington Post, Daily Dot, The Daily Mail,^[7] Mashable,^[8] and more.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References