Colonel Meow

Colonel Meow

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Updated Nov 06, 2019 at 10:06AM EST by Y F.

Added Sep 25, 2012 at 02:11PM EDT by Serious Ness.

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About

Colonel Meow was a Himalayan-Persian crossbreed cat best known for his unique fluffy coat and intense facial expressions. The cat rose to internet fame after being featured on the internet news site The Daily What in September 2012. Colonel Meow passed away in January 2014.

Origin

Colonel Meow (born October 11th, 2011) was adopted in 2011 by Anne Marie Avey of Seattle, Washington, after he was rescued by a local Himalayan and Persian Society. On August 9th, 2012, Avey set up a Facebook fan page[1] for the cat, posting pictures and videos of Colonel Meow. By September 17th, 2012, the page had 166 likes.



Spread

On September 18th, 2012, three photos of the cat were featured on the Daily What[2] with a link to his Facebook profile, followed by a similar post on the humor site Death and Taxes[13] later that same day. Within 24 hours, the total count of likes for Colonel Meow's Facebook page shot up from less than 200 to more than 9,400.[3]

In the following week, the photos of the fuzzy cat continued to make the rounds in the cat-friendly blogosphere and internet humor communities like The Daily Dot[3], Buzzfeed[12] and Reddit[13]. By the end of the last week in September, the Facebook page had accumulated 17,000 likes[4]and The Daily What[4] had featured a follow up interview[4] with the owner Anne Marie Avey, in which she noted that Colonel Meow was scheduled to appear on the American TV talk show Ellen in December.



In early October, Colonel Meow was featured by Seattle's local news and radio stations like The Pacific Northwest Inlander[20], My Northwest[9] and Northwest NPR-affiliate KPLU[17], as well as news blogs and foreign news sites, including the French news site Le Matin[14], British news site The Daily Mail[10], the Digital Journal[8], ABC News[7], the International Business Times[6], the Huffington Post[18] and humor site Crave Online.[21] On October 9th, Colonel Meow and Avery appeared on CNN's Anderson Live (shown below), but the conversation was derailed after Avery made a comment about a prior incident between Anderson Cooper and former anchor of The View, Star Jones.[11][16]



Following her TV appearances in early October, Avery launched a Twitter account[22] and Tumblr[25] for the cat to feed the images from an Instagram account[23] that had been established earlier in late September. Many of these photos and tweets include the hashtag #SpreadTheFrown.[24]By October 9th, Avey claimed that the Facebook page was gaining approximately 1000 likes per day[15] and, as of October 17th, Colonel Meow’s fan page has 78,912 likes.

Guiness World Record

In August 2013, Colonel Meow was award the Guiness World Record for "longest fur on a cat," with an average hair length of 10 inches.



h4. Notable Images


HADFUN ONCE IT WAS AWFUL

Death

In November 2013, Avery announced that Colonel Meow had been hospitalized due to heart problems after surviving a complicated surgery and blood transfusion.[29] On January 30th, 2014, Avery posted a status update via Colonel Meow's Facebook[30] page to reveal that the two-year-old kitten had passed away the evening prior and thanked the followers for their support. The cause of death has yet to be announced.




On the same day, the Colonel Meow YouTube channel uploaded a video titled "Colonel Meow, You Will Be Missed", featuring a montage of notable photographs and videos of the cat (shown below).



Avery's Facebook announcement was soon followed by obituaries and tributes on popular social news sites, including Mashable, The Daily Mail,[34] The Independent,[35]IBI Times,[36] Today,[37] BuzzFeed,[38] and BoingBoing.[40] Meanwhile on Reddit, three posts in memory of Colonel Meow reached the front page of Reddit,[31][32][33] after accumulating a combined total of over 37,000 up votes in the first 24 hours. The passing of Colonel Meow was also mourned by Mike Bridavsky and Tabatha Bundesen, the owners of Lil Bub and Grumpy Cat, who passed on their condolences to Avery in a statement released via Mashable (shown below).

Tabatha Bundesen: “It may be the grumpiest day ever. Grumpy and Colonel made a special connection at the Friskies holiday event and it feels like she lost a partner in crime. Long live Colonel Meow.”

Mike Bridavsky: “Dear Colonel, you are without question, the most remarkable, impressive and regal living creatures I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Despite your intimidating facade, you were an incredible kind and loving creature that brought millions of humans great joy. Your legacy will never be forgotten Colonel. See you in space my dear friend.”

In the coming days, several news sites reported on that cat's death, including The Daily Mail,[34] The Independent,[35] IBI Times,[36] Today,[37] BuzzFeed,[38] and BoingBoing.[40]

Search Interest

External References

[1] Facebook – Colonel Meow

[2] The Daily What – Like This Cat On Facebook of the Day

[3] Daily Dot – Colonel Meow goes from regular housecat to Facebook star

[4] The Daily What – Colonel Meow Talks To The Daily What of the Day

[5] Izismile – Colonel Meow Might Be the Angriest Cat on Earth

[6] International Business Times – Colonel Meow: World’s Angriest Cat Goes Viral From Facebook Fame

[7] ABC News – Is This the World’s Angriest Cat?

[8] Digital Journal – Colonel Meow is 'the world's angriest cat'

[9] MyNorthwest.com – World's angriest cat lives in Seattle

[10] Daily Mail: The very sour puss who has thousands of fans despite being 'the world's angriest cat'

[11] E! Online: Anderson Cooper: I'm "Done" With Star Jones

[12] Buzzfeed – That Is One Pissed-Looking Cat

[13] Death+Taxes: Colonel Meow might have the best page on Facebook

[14] Le Matin: «Colonel Meow», la nouvelle star de Facebook

[15] King5: Seattle cat 'Colonel Meow' is a rising Facebook superstar

[16] Perez Hilton: Anderson Cooper Refuses To Linger On Star Jones' Bigotry!

[17] KPLU-NPR: Seattle’s latest rising star? Colonel Meow

[18] The Huffington Post: Colonel Meow, Angriest Cat In The World, Wants You To 'Spread The Frown'

[19] Reddit – My friend's new cat, Colonel Meow, looks like an old man.

[20] Pacific Northwest Inlander: Colonel Meow, Washington state's awesome-est celbri-cat

[21] Crave Online: Meet Colonel Meow

[22] Twitter – @Colonel_Meow

[23] Statigram – ColonelMeow

[24] Twitter – Search results for #spreadthefrown

[25] Tumblr – Colonel Meow

[26] King5: Seattle super cat Colonel Meow on Evening Magazine

[27] PawNation: MEET COLONEL MEOW

[28] Redfin: Finding Colonel Meow’s Cat Castle of World Domination

[29] Today – Colonel Meow Hospitalized

[30] Facebook – Colonel Meow Passed Away

[31] Reddit – RIP Colonel Meow

[32] Reddit – May he forever lead his minions

[33] Reddit – Colonel Meow passed away

[34] Daily Mail – Goodbye Minions

[35] The Independent – Colonel Meow Dead

[36] IBI Times – Colonel Meow Dead

[37] Today – Colonel Meow Internet Star Dead

[38] BuzzFeed – In Memoriam

[39] Mashable – The Internet Mourns the death of Colonel Meow

[40] Boing Boing – RIP Colonel Meow

Recent Videos 6 total

Recent Images 40 total


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