About

Cigar Cougar or Cursed Panther Smoking refers to a cursed image of an old-looking and skinny cougar or panther smoking a cigarette while sitting in a plastic lawn chair outside a porch at night. The picture, likely an AI-generated image, first appeared on Reddit in March 2023 and was later featured in caption memes on Facebook and used as a reaction image on X / Twitter.

Origin

On March 3rd, 2023, Redditor^[1] ITSNOTAPHASEMOM0_0 posted the earliest known mention of the cursed image of a brown or tan-colored cougar smoking a cigarette on a porch at night, calling it "Cigar Cougar" (seen below), which amassed more than 1,800 likes and 55 comments in a year.

Spread

The image was popularized as a cursed image and reaction meme over the course of a year.

For example, on August 28th, 2024, the Facebook^[2] meme page Meme Mental Asylum added the text overlay to the cigar cougar meme "POV: I'm trying to heal in 2024." The post amassed over 260 likes and 275 reposts in a month.

On June 22nd, 2024, X^[3] user @Ese7391 used the cursed cougar smoking meme as a reaction image alongside the caption, "Me thinking, but I don't know thinking about what I'm thinking," which received roughly 80 likes and 14 reposts in four months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References