Inception Cat

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About

Inception Cat is a YouTube video of a cat slowly raising its head above the floorboard and giving an intense peek at the camera before hiding behind it again, while the Inception soundtrack (Zack Hemsey – Mind Heist) can be heard playing in the background for dramatic effect.

Origin

Original Footage

The earliest uploaded instance comes from a Russian Youtube video (no audio) from September 1st, 2010:

Entitled ПИЗДЕЦ МНЕ!, meaning "I'm fucked!", renamed in ПИЗДЕЦ МНЕ! Inception Cat further on, following the Inception Cat phenomenon, that video has gathered more than 2,200,000 views as well and, similar to the other video, it's the only one video uploaded by user THTTB on its Youtube account. A peek at the video graph shows that it has had a parallel fame as its modified version, starting around September the 2nd :

Feat. Inception Soundtrack

The Youtube clip was originally submitted by user spederson7 on September the 2nd 2010. It's the only video that can be found on the user's channel, who subscribed to Youtube on July 2006.

It features a camera shot at ground level of the bottom frame of what looks like a glass door between two rooms. Because of what little can be seen from both rooms, it is assumed that the room the camera is in is a shower room and the room the camera is filming can be a loggia/mezzanine. Aside from the Inception soundtrack, the video description simply states Inception Cat will haunt your dreams. In the first month of its upload, the video received over 2,300,000 views.

Early Examples

While the spederson7 video has had an impressive viral impact on the web, it must be noted that it wasn't the first video of a cat using that peculiar Inception music track. The very first, called "Catception", was uploaded by user Rickyohead on July the 19th 2010 :

That video has received more than 340,000 views to date. It was also featured on ICanHasCheeseburger in July 2010. That exact same video has been reuploaded by user TheEpinePhrin on September 2nd, stating that it was inspired by the Inception Cat video :

Spread

The same day it has been uploaded to Youtube, it was featured on ICanHasCheeseburger, entitled We Has 2 Meow Deeper!. It was also featured on Today's big things which link can also be seen on Stumble Upon.

September 3rd, the video started being featured on Reddit, spawning several threads. It was posted on College Humor as well.

September 4th, it was linked to Digg (even if it didn't gather as much attention) and BuzzFeed.

September 5th, Ray William Johnson made it its first featured segment of his YOU RACIST! video, calling it the Peeping tom Cat. An article began to be written on Enclycopedia Dramatica that same day.

September 6th, Inception Cat appeared on Facebook, following a link from FunCage.com. It would also have its own Facebook fan page.

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Notable Examples

The very first video derivative reusing the initial spederson7 footage would be made by user sucazza on September 3rd and featured a lemur (or so the title says) :