Cat Looking at Man Holding Dog

About

Cat Looking at Man Holding Dog or Jealous Cat refers to a series of object labeling memes based on a photograph of a cat looking at its owner holding a puppy in his hands, with the cat wearing an expression of jealousy and sadness. Starting in August 2019, the image gained popularity as an object labeling meme on Reddit.

Origin

On August 17th, 2019, Redditor^[1] angiexxn posted a four-panel image based on a photograph of a man holding a puppy in his hands, with a cat looking at them with an expression of sadness and jealousy (shown below).The post received over 25,000 upvotes in /r/aww subreddit in four months.

In the following days, the image was reposted in multiple subreddits, including posts in /r/Thisismylifemeow^[2] and /r/animalsdoingstuff.^[3] On August 21st, 2019, Redditor^[4] 2moca posted the earliest known meme based on the image (shown below, left), gaining 150 upvotes in /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. On August 25th, 2019, Redditor^[5] _cuberpunk posted a meme which received over 700 upvotes in four months (shown below, center. On the same day, Redditor^[6] rithkott posted the first viral meme based on the format which gained over 19,500 upvotes in four months (shown below, right).

Spread

On September 22nd, 2019, Redditor^[7] Jforceteam2 posted a Crying Cat edit of the image made by an unknown author to /r/funny subreddit, gaining over 45,600 upvotes (shown below, left). On the same day, Redditor^[8] LocoMotoiv posted the earliest known object labeling meme based on the edit in /r/me_irl subreddit, gaining over 9,500 upvotes (shown below, right).

The edited version of the image saw limited use until on October 31st, 2019, Redditor mijuzz7^[9] posted a version of the meme which gained over 117,000 upvotes in two months (shown below). Following the post, the format gained significant popularity in major meme communities on Reddit.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References