About

The Cat Pointing and Laughing, not to be confused with the Screaming Laughing Cat meme, is a viral picture consisting of the photo of a cat with its mouth wide open, and in the bottom left part of the photo, the Index Pointing at the Viewer emoji ^[1]; the full picture makes it look as if the cat is openly mocking the viewer. It became a popular reaction image and the inspiration for various redraws and edits.

Origin

Although the origin of that picture itself is unclear, as even its oldest occurrences are blurry (perhaps on purpose), its first attested online presence can be pinpointed to October 15th, 2023, in a YouTube video^[2] (see below) uploaded by SevTube; this video gained over 135,000 likes in 16 months.

According to the Daily Dot,^[3] the picture could have appeared as early as the early fall of 2023, in a YouTube compilation of laughing cats.

Spread

The picture of the laughing cat has been used online, particularly as a Twitch emote, for mocking reactions. It has also been used as a template for memes, akin to Advice Animals, and it inspired redraws and edits recreating the laughter and finger-pointing, with other animals as well as fictional characters; in the edits, the pointing emoji is simply added in the same way.

Various Examples

Template

External References