CatJAM / Vibing Cat

About

CatJAM is a BetterTTV custom Twitch emote of a white cat rhythmically bobbing its head as if to the beat of a song. Originating from a viral video, the emote gained major success on Twitch after being enabled by multiple popular streamers, later gaining popularity as source material for memes in which the cat "vibes" to various music. The cat is also known as Vibing Cat.

Origin

On April 15th, 2020, TikTok^[13] user micklagi posted a video of a white cat rhythmically bobbing its head as if to the beat of a song accompanied by EDM track "I Wanna Dance" by Jonas Blue. The video received over 239,700 views and 17,000 likes in four months. It appears as if the cat's head is being pushed by a person, which the pet's owner later confirmed was how the bobbing was achieved during an interview with Know Your Meme.^[17]

The creator of the video Mick Lagi, who is a friend of the owner of the cat, later revealed^[16] that the cat is female and that its name is Minette. Some time during Autumn 2020, the owner of the cat gave it away^[17] due to his son developing an allergy.

On July 12th, 2020, Twitter^[1] user @TheTehseen reposted the video. The post received over 753,500 views, 26,700 retweets and 59,200 likes on Twitter in one month. In the following days, the video received viral spread online with multiple reposts on Instagram and other online platforms.

On July 24th, BetterTTV^[2] user MadLittleCat submitted a transparent GIF of the cat as a custom Twitch emoji (shown below).

Spread

The emote gained viral spread on Twitch, being enabled by multiple notable streamers such as xQc (following a July 28th post in /r/xqcow^[12] requesting the emote to be enabled) and Tyler1 in the following weeks. As of August 12th, 2020, over 12,600 Twitch channels enabled the emoji.^[2]

Starting in late July 2020, the video and the GIF started gaining notable spread in memes on various platforms most notably TikTok and Reddit. On July 30th, 2020, TikTok^[3] user benbanana3 posted the video, accompanied by "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley and captioned "When you order 10 chicken nuggets but get 11" (shown below, left). The video received over 2.6 million views and 300,000 likes in two weeks. In the following days, more memes based on the video were posted by TikTok users; for example, an August 1st, 2020, meme by milojk317^[4] received over 4.4 million views and 729,000 likes (shown below, center). Another meme posted by milojk317^[5] on the same day gained over 2.9 million views and 408,700 likes (shown below, right). An August 2nd, iFunny^[6] repost of that meme received over 95,800 smiles in ten days.

On August 8th, 2020, Redditor^[7] Awsisazeen posted a STFU I'm Listening to meme based on the GIF to /r/okbuddretard subreddit, where it received over 27,000 upvotes in five days (shown below).

He do be vibin :blush: from r/okbuddyretard

On the same day, Redditor^[8] docohoi posted a GIF caption based on the CatJAM emoji to /r/memes subreddit, where it received over 78,100 upvotes in four days.

In the following days, the CatJAM emote gained significant popularity in memes on Reddit,^[9][10] particularly as source material for GIF captions. On August 12th, eBaum's World^[11] covered the viral spread of the emote in memes.

@CatVibesTo

On October 14th, novelty Twitter account Cat Vibes To (@CatVibesTo)^[14] was launched, posting videos in which the animation was set to various songs (example video shown below). The account gained viral popularity in the following month, accumulating over 125,700 subscribers in four weeks.

GTA IV Theme pic.twitter.com/b7DsnIkmPi

— Cat Vibes To (@CatVibesTo) October 17, 2020

On October 21st, sister account Cat Vibes to Anime (@CatVibeToAnime)^[15] became active, gaining 37,000 followers in three weeks.

Various Examples

Doom Eternal – At Doom's Gate pic.twitter.com/jZR5iTYf24

— Cat Vibes To (@CatVibesTo) October 20, 2020

Related Memes

Cat Vibing to Street Musician's Ievan Polkka

Cat Vibing to Street Musician's Ievan Polkka refers to a viral instance of the Vibing Cat meme which has gained popularity as an object labeling meme and a reaction video. Originally posted on Twitter in mid-October 2020, it gained viral popularity on Reddit later that month.

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Search Interest

External References