About

Ceiling Cat is part of the larger Caturday history, Catnarok mythology, nemesis of Basement Cat, and progenitor of Basement Horse.

Origin

The now famous image of an orange cat peering through a hole in the ceiling has been online since 2003. It was uploaded to FunnyJunk.com on June 1st, 2003 as Stalker Kitty. The Ceiling Cat meme, however, is believed to have originated in 2006 when the image appeared with the caption “Ceiling Cat is watching you masturbate.”

Many variants of this image appeared on /b/, using the “cat in a hole” exploitable in a number of ways. One notable variant is the “Where Is Your God Now” image macro, in which Ceiling Cat is shopped in a manner making it appear as though Ceiling Cat is peering through a hole in the sky.

On Y.T.M.N.D.

On February 8th, 2006, user track11 posted the first instance of Ceiling Cat to appear on YTMND.

• Ceiling Cat…

Most instances of Ceiling Cat on YTMND were produced during 2006, but there have been a few instances of Ceiling Cat appearing on YTMND for each subsequent year.

More YTMNDs

• Celing Cat is Watching…
• Kitten vs. Ceiling Cat: Stare off
• Brian Peppers watches Ceiling Cat…

Exploring the Myths

Building upon this theme of Ceiling Cat as God, the Ceiling Cat meme spawned a few different religiously-themed mythologies:

• Catnarok on Encylopedia Dramatica These have a very distinct canon.
• The Lolcat Bible Also has a distinct canon.
• Various apocryphal narratives that borrow from both of the previous, and fromIcanHasCheezburger

Catnarok

The current telling of the Catnarok prophecy as of August 14th, 2009, according to Encyclopedia Dramatica

Ceiling cat will warn Anonymous that Catnarok is nigh. It will be the meow of doom. The Internet Hate Machine will begin to operate at maximum force. Limecat will not be amused. Happy Snake will be happy. The pool will be closed. Raptor Jesus will go extinct. Auschwitz will be fired up again. Gay porn will be posted on every MySpace page. All iPods will be stolen. Curtains will be drawn. LOL will be corrupted. No dogs will be left to buy. All furfags will be yiffing in hell. Lazers will be charged to previously unknown levels.
It will be the Day of Reckoning.

While it is never spelled out exactly, the images depict the war between Longcat and Tacgnol clearly represent light and dark. Furthermore, the rest of the text on ED eludes to a timeless nature of the fight, being the ever present balance, as a representaton of the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy.

An Epic Google Insights Graph

There are some truly remarkable things happening in this graph. Queries for Longcat preceed queries for Ceiling Cat; beginning in August of 2005. Another six months passes before Ceiling Cat queries begin. We can interpret this to mean that people began to hear of Longcat well before knowing of Ceiling Cat. Over one year passed with both of these memes queries being mostly unrelated.

Tacgnol queries first appear in March of 2007. During this month Google search traffic for Longcat and Ceiling Cat were about equal. By June of 2007, the trends for Ceiling Cat and Longcat begin to exhibit clear correlations in activity.

August 2007: Catnarok is documented on ED.

By November of 2007, we begin to see search queries for Catnarok.

February 2008: Ceiling Cat and Longcat show an increase in activity.

Change of Power
April 2008: Ceiling Cat reaches its pinnacle popularity, just as search queries for Basement Cat appear. Simultaneously, Catnarok has peaked. Ceilingcat, Longcat, and Tacgnol all begin to decrease in traffic by May.

These relationships can be interpeted as this: Longcat is the avatar for Ceiling Cat, acting in his service. Tacgnol, may have been an avatar of Basement Cat, but Basement Cat was the only one to benefit from the April 2008 Catnarok peak.

By June of 2008, all five trends exhibit a very strong correlation.

The Lolcat Bible

Written about in the LA Times, The Lolcat Bible is a Wiki translation of the Christian Bible directly adapted to be relevent to cats, verse for verse.

“Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.”

The beliefs represented by the Lolcat Bible clearly conflict with Catnarok.
The name Longcat does not appear anywhere in The Lolcat Bible, nor does Armageddon.

Matthew 1:18

18 Now, teh burth of teh Christ was liek dis: After Marry and Joseph waz all “We’s gonna get marrieded, kthnx”, but befoor dey cood hav hankiez pankiez Mary was all preggarz from Teh Ceiling Cat.19 Joseph was liek “I has virjn – NOOOO dey be stealin my virjn! Must hied hur”.20 But when he was tihnkin, zomg, a BirdCat frm Ceiling Cat was liek, “Oh hai! Iz in ur dreemz, givin u messij. Don be scairdy cat. Taek Mary as ur wife – is virjn. But teh Forse is strong in tihs wun, lol! HovrCat is on hur, givn hur babby, srsly.” So Joseph was liek " Oh yey. Iz gonna luv him and squeez him and call him George."21 But BirdCat was liek “No, you gonna call him bahbeh Jeebus. cuz he save kittehs frum bein bad kittehs. Kthxbai.”22 So all dis was all did cuz Ceiling Cat had sed it wud be. Him proffit was all liek:23 “Hay guise, luk! teh virjn is all preggers, and dey gonna call him A-manual”, dat be joospeek for “Ceiling Cat wit us”24 Then Joseph walked up, dun wat teh BirdCat frm Ceiling Cat tolded him too, and was all liek “U wit me now lol” at Mary.25 And dey didnt has Hankiez Pankiez til affer dey gets a son and calleded him Jeebus. Kthnx.

Names mentioned pertaining to the Christ Kitten in this passage are Jeebus, and A-manual. Jeebus is written about in many various ways, and is written about on Urban Dictionary.com It’s not entirely clear if Ceiling Cat’s son was the human known as Jebus or perhaps a cat known as Jebus.

By Mark 1:9 the Christ Kitteh is referred to as Happy Cat.

9 So Happy Cat, he come to John like John sez. John dunkxz Happy Cat with waterz.10 Ceiling Cat sends Hovr Cat.11 Ceiling Cat sez “This mai Kitteh. He roxxors an I’ze happy.”12 Thn teh Hovr Cat sends him 2 wild.13 An he was in wilderness long tyme (srsly, 40 dais!). An Basement Cat wuz showin’ lotza evilz cheezburgrz an catnipz to him. An he wuz wit teh sqirrelz, an anjelz wer giving him srsly betur cheezburgrz an brayded hiz fur.

Happy Cat, is of course, the famous face of IcanHasCheezburger.com.

Image Macro Narratives

• Supreme Deity of Lolspeak

Most of these Image Macro Narratives consist primarily of images from IcanHazCheezburger, with a few 4Chan shown in succession to create their own interpretations. Many often cite the Lolcat Bible, and some even make attempts to deify Longcat above Ceiling Cat. As such, these are all considered apocraphal, or non-canonical.

• Ceiling Cat narrative on Daily Kos

This narrative contains a certain image that has raised a number of eyebrows on all sides. In this image, Longcat and Tacgnol are labeld Basement Cat and Ceiling Cat. This has upset Catnarok enthusiasts, and is seen as a blashemous idolitry from the aspect of The Lolcat Bible.

According to Ben Huh, CEO of Icanhazcheezburger:

<a href=http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/04/07/funny-pictures-the-final-battle-for-our-souls-begins/ > This was the subject of much rage because of the clear mislabeling of Longcat and Tacgnol There were much calls for An Hero-ing.
There is much danger in the assumption that there is concrete singular linear line of story arc from Ceiling Cat to other named cats. There are some people who are trying to organize LC and CC as the same entity, but my recollection and popular assumption is not so.

Ben Huh
CEO
I Can Has Cheezburger?

Another item worth noting is how most visual representations of Ceiling Cat as a deity that were created after Basement Cat, depict Ceiling Cat as white instead of orange, which is often a contributing factor toward some equating Longcat with Ceiling Cat himself.

More references:

ceilingcat.com

Ceiling Cat Invaders game uploaded to Kongregate.com on July 13th, 2007.