About

Zesty Karl-Anthony Towns, also known as Zesty KAT, refers to a series of memes and jokes about professional basketball player Karl-Anthony Towns (KAT) of the New York Knicks having a supposed flamboyant or queer-coded voice and movements perceived as "zesty" by some online. The Zesty Karl-Anthony Towns memes started in late 2021. The posts picked up again in April 2024 on TikTok, after a few compilation videos titled "Karl-Anthony Zesty Moments" were posted on the platform, sparking comments about the player's voice and mannerisms. In May 2025, a picture of KAT and NBA player Jayson Tatum during the Celtics vs. Knicks 2025 Playoffs series became a viral topic online on Reddit, Twitter / X and Facebook, spawning more jokes about Towns' "zesty" pose in the photo.

Origin

On December 28th, 2021, X^[4] user @blame_two reposted a clip from a then-recent Karl-Anthony Towns podcast when he was on the Minnesota Timberwolves, captioning it, "This his speaking voice? Please respond." The post gained over 3,200 likes in four years (shown below).

In the replies, various X^[5] users used the slang words "zest" and "zesty" to describe Towns' voice. The tweet is currently the earliest known viral post relating KAT to the term "zesty."

Spread

In the following years, more clips of NBA player Karl-Anthony Towns speaking and acting that were perceived as "zesty" surfaced online.

For instance, on May 23rd, 2023, a clip of Towns on the podcast of Los Angeles Clippers player Paul George was shared on X^[6] by the account @TheDunkCentral. In the clip, Towns says, "For sure." Many X^[7] users in the comments made quips about Towns' supposed "zesty" voice.

A few months later, on July 7th, X^[8] user @Zazamyodor quote-tweeted a new post with the "For sure" clip, captioning it, "That 'for sure' was nasty work." Over three years, the quote gained over 46,000 likes (shown below).

On February 27th, 2024, TikTok^[1] user @thaflyestever posted a compilation of Karl-Anthony Towns supposedly acting "zesty," including clips from interviews and NBA games, amassing roughly 80,000 likes and 8,600 shares in a year (seen below).

Clips and memes of "Zesty KAT" gained traction on TikTok and Reddit among NBA fans over the course of 2024 into 2025, mainly mocking the basketball player's mannerisms and voice, implying that he is gay.

For instance, on May 9th, 2025, TikTok^[2] user @locoprezident43 posted a video of Towns adding the Nail Polish Emoji alongside quotes of the athlete (a symbol sometimes used to indicate that something is gay). The video (seen below) gained over 10 million plays and 1.3 million likes in three weeks.

On May 6th, 2025, Redditor u/BodybuilderBulky2897 uploaded a picture of KAT and fellow basketball player Jayson Tatum's confrontation during the Celtics vs. Knicks game to the /r/Nbamemes^[3] subreddit, amassing more than 1,800 upvotes and 230 comments in three weeks (seen below). Many replies in the thread discussed the perception of KAT as flamboyant or zesty, also commenting on the meme potential of the photo.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References