Overview
This meme features a hand-drawn illustration of a cat resembling Guan Yin Pu Sa, a Chinese goddess of mercy. It originated from an older meme about a “polite cat,” which was redrawn by an person in China. The new artistic rendition inadvertently gave the cat an “autistic-looking” expression, sparking humor centered around the absurdity of praying to a foolish or unintelligent deity. The meme skillfully combines religious iconography with ironic internet humor, resonating with both Chinese and Western meme communities.
Origin
The meme traces its roots to the "polite cat" meme, which depicted a cat with a slightly awkward but formal expression. This meme format was originally used to represent a cat behaving in a formally polite but slightly uncomfortable manner. At some point, an Taiwanese internet user Named Ian Town along with his company Pace design Taiwan hand-drew a version of the polite cat in a religious style, unintentionally exaggerating its facial expression. This transformed the meme from a simple, humorous image into a surreal concept where people "pray" to an unintelligent-looking deity. Some noteworthy usage of this meme was during the Chinese Gao Kao, their version of the SAT. Where kids were posting this meme praying for better results.
Spread
The meme first gained traction on Chinese social media, especially on platforms like Weibo and Bilibili, where users found humor in the contrast between religious devotion and the cat’s vacant expression. Soon after There were merchandise sold, and poste hung around, and many more redrawn memes in similar fashion began circulating the internet.
Some notable instances of the meme include:
• Weibo post where users mocked blind devotion, captioning the image with variations of “praying to my stupid god.”
• https://www.rakuten.com.tw/shop/meme/product/joj4694ka/. The company start selling merch of this Meme