Where Are They Now? Here's What Nyannyancosplay, AKA The 'Hit or Miss Girl,' Has Been Up To Since Her Viral TikTok Era In 2018

The late 2010s on TikTok was a weird era for the budding social networking platform. Posting to TikTok was still considered low-brow by some, and it had not captured the sleek influencer market the way it has now.

TikTok's greatest posters back in 2018 were "cringe" influencers like "Nyannyancosplay," a young cosplay artist who mostly made videos dressing up as anime characters and lip-syncing popular songs.

And that's exactly what Nyannyancosplay, whose real name is "Kat" or Katherine, was doing in her viral 2018 TikTok — she was dressed up in Nico Yazawa's cheerleader costume from the anime Love Live! and lipsyncing to the iLOVEFRiDAY song "Mia Khalifa."

At the time, Nyannyancosplay didn't know that her innocuous video would breach TikTok containment and give birth to one of the first truly viral memes to come from the platform, but what she really didn't anticipate was the hate train that would come along with it.

Six years on from her moment in the sun, Kat has stepped back from posting daily to her TikTok account to focus instead on her streaming career on Twitch. According to updates posted on Kat's Twitter, her move away from doing TikTok full-time seems connected to the trolling she faced for her viral video on the site, even though the comments on her newer videos commemorate her as a legendary figure.

Here's the lowdown on Nyannyancosplay, also known as the "Hit or Miss Girl," and a look at what she's been up to in recent years since her time in the internet culture spotlight.

Who Is Nyannyancosplay, And How Did She First Go Viral Online?

Nyannyancosplay, now 26, was around 19 years old in 2018 and mostly spent her time online dressing up in cosplay and making dance videos. She shared her first TikTok back in March of that year, which pictured her in cosplay from the 1989 movie Heathers singing the song "Beautiful" by Katie Ladner, Alice Lee, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Barrett Wilbert Weed and Elle McLemore.

On September 10th later that same year, Nyannyancosplay posted a TikTok of herself dressed up as the character Nica Yazawa from Love Live! She wore a black wig, pink ribbons and a cheerleader outfit while she lipsynced the song "Mia Khalifa" by iLOVEFRiDAY.

@nyannyancosplay Hit or miss? 😎💕 | #cosplay #jpop #lovelivecosplay #lovelive #nicoyazawa #cute #cosplayer ♬ Mia Khalifa – iLOVEFRiDAY

The video's virality on TikTok was undeniable as it quickly garnered attention on the site. TikTokers dueted Nyannyancosplay and even dressed up as her to remake her video, including Smosh legend Anthony Padilla and notorious e-girl Belle Delphine.

@anthonypadilla my whole life has led to this one moment | @nyannyancosplay #hitormiss ♬ original sound – Anthony Padilla

@belledelqhinee Who else remembers this?💕 #belle #hitormiss? #fyp ♬ Mia Khalifa – iLOVEFRiDAY

In the six years since the now-viral video was first uploaded by Nyannyancosplay, it's accumulated a whopping 8.6 million views and 770,000 likes, which is especially impressive considering how much TikTok was still in its infancy back then.

How Did Internet Users React To Nyannyancosplay's Video?

During the initial virality of the video back in late 2018, it gathered millions of views on TikTok, aided in large part by the popularity of the song on the app. The hashtag "#hitormiss" challenge also racked up over 250 million views on the platform by the end of the year, and thousands of people dueted Nyannyancosplay's video specifically.

But it wasn't until the video began spreading outside of the app that people realized just how viral it had truly gotten.

YouTube reuploads like the one posted by (questionably named) YouTuber White Rationalist gathered over a million views in just a few weeks of going live, with the YouTuber in question defending Nyannyancosplay against people who thought she was a guy, and calling her a "QT."

Lushsux, a street artist from Australia who's now well-known for his internet meme-themed murals, even took the time to paint Nyannyancosplay holding a gun alongside a caption that likely kicked off an emojipasta featuring lyrics from the song. On the Twitter post, Lushsux gathered over 15,000 likes for his artwork as Nyannyancosplay's online presence continued growing.

"🤕Hit 👊 or miss😳 I guess 🤔they 👉never ❌ miss, huh 😕😕? You 🙌got 🤪a boyfriend😍, I bet 🎰😶he 😨doesn't 👎kiss 😘😘 ya🤭 mwah💖 😻He 🧐gon' find 🔍🔍 another girl 👶 🤩and he 😮won't😤 miss👌 ya🙀 He 🤤gon' 😲skrrt and hit 👊👊 the dab😎 like 😄😄 Wiz 🤠Khalifa🤑"

What Did Nyannyancosplay Think About Her Fame At The Time?

Nyannyancosplay gained hundreds of thousands of followers through one viral video, and she recreated it for her new fans on its one-year anniversary, dressed in a Hatsune Miku costume.

@nyannyancosplay Sept 10th was officially 1 year| #memeiversary #hitormiss #hatsunemikucosplay #cosplay #mikucosplay ♬ original sound – Kat

But it seems like her rapid ascent to fame wasn't as nice as it might appear from an outsider's perspective. In a 2020 interview with Anthony Padilla of Smosh, she talks about how much hate she actually received for her video.

According to her, a lot of people were annoyed by TikTok at the time, and she had somehow come to represent the worst parts of it in other internet user's minds. She also said that, for how iconic the moment was for many TikTokers, she never actually received a single cent for the trend.

What Is Nyannyancosplay Up To Now, And Where Can You Find Her Today?

Nyannyancosplay goes by Kat or Drizzy these days and splits her time between her TikTok, Instagram and Twitch accounts. She doesn't post as regularly on TikTok as she used to, and in recent years, she's talked about why.

On September 10th, 2024, Nyannyancosplay tweeted about having mixed feelings about the six-year anniversary of the Hit or Miss video, noting that she was still waiting for trolls to die down.

However, Kat still loves to cosplay, and in the last two years, she posted a lot about attending cosplay conventions and raves, her two favorite activities. She went to KatsuCon dressed as Maka Albarn from Soul Eater in February, and she still has photos from the time she backpacked across South Korea to follow her favorite boy band "Stray Kids" in 2022 pinned to the top of her profile.

These days, Kat looks to be putting most of her efforts into her Twitch streams and growing her so-called "Nyarmy." She became a partner on Twitch soon after she joined the platform sometime around 2020, and she usually streams herself playing video games or just chatting with her fans.

If you're curious to see for yourself, you can find her on Twitch, Instagram, Twitter / X and TikTok under her online handle @nyannyancosplay.

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For the full history of Nyannyancosplay, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.