Evolution of Cat Memes
Throughout the years that the internet has been around, there have been many trends that come and go. Various different images, videos, phrases and even dances that have their time to shine but nothing has been around as long as cat memes and videos. In the early 2000’s cat memes first surfaced as one of the first big memes to be popularized. It first started off as mere pictures to laugh at, funny images of cats doing silly things but it slowly evolved.
These pictures of cats originally became more and more popular as some of the first memes because of their simplicity, relatability and the general consensus among the population of liking cats. Their growing popularity grew consistently as people found new ways to edit the photos and this sparked a new era of cat memes.
As time went on people started creating cat videos and using clips of them as GIFs and uploading them with new and more intriguing captions. This eventually lead to people putting edited audios over cat videos for dramatic effects and soon lead to animated videos of cats. One of the most popular cat memes that surfaced in 2011 that almost everybody knew about was Pop-tart Cat. It was a simple 8-Bit style video with an edited cat as a Pop-tart flying through space. This meme turned into a game in later years and it had the following audio playing in the background :
Throughout the years the evolution of these memes not only show the growth in technology but also the change in general psyche of the public as well as how humor evolved, or in some cases devolved. Cat memes started off with relatable pictures of cats portraying a certain emotion but over time they have changed into some overly edited pictures of cats with one or two words as the caption.
One of the most popular cat memes as of 2023 is one that has been coined the name “Chipi Chipi Chapa Chapa”, where someone took a video of a cat walking side to side and put over an audio of a young girl singing a Hispanic song. It is a recycled meme that follows the same meme format of Pop-tart cat.
This evolution of cat memes shows digital culture to me because of it’s very early relevance as well as how it has continued to grow in popularity over the years. It has also reflected how many people were thinking and what people found funny at the time. Also this shows the evolution of media over time especially between Pop-tart cat and Chipi-Cat as well as the variations between the original memes and spin offs. Pop-tart cat did not have as many spin offs unlike Chipi-Cat that has had edits of the cat under disco lighting or bass boosted audio.
For me, these car videos stick out a lot to me because I have always liked cats and when I’m not amused with some of the other memes that are popular, cat memes are like the “Good ole reliable” to me.
Citations :
“Top 5 Bingus (Part 2).” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4HxFKCVEUk. Accessed 24 Jan. 2024.
“Chipi Chipi Chapa Chapa Cat.” Silly Cat Wiki, silly-cat.fandom.com/wiki/Chipi_Chipi_Chapa_Chapa_Cat. Accessed 24 Jan. 2024.
“50 Hilarious Cat Memes from This Instagram Account Anyone Obsessed with Cats Would Enjoy.” Bored Panda, 12 Aug. 2023, www.boredpanda.com/funny-adorable-cat-memes-happycat318/. Accessed 24 Jan. 2024.
“What’s in a Meme? A Brief History of What Salon Thinks Memes Are.” Salon, 10 Mar. 2020, www.salon.com/2020/03/08/whats-in-a-meme-a-brief-history-of-what-salon-thinks-memes-are/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2020.
Ah, cat memes. A constant in life, along with death and taxes. I genuinely find it interesting how the internet's love for cats has only ever increased as time went on. The fact that grumpy cat has managed to amass an audience large enough to have an entire movie dedicated to them ( Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever ) is pretty impressive, and cements Grumpy Cat's spot as one of the more important internet cultural figures, despite not being human at all.
This article did such a great job on introducing cat memes' development! I am one of the victims of all these cute cat memes and I really love them, but honestly, I don't know a lot about the development and evolution of all these famous memes. And like you said, cat memes are usually not only fun pictures. They often express what the content maker and the majorities think.