About

Larry the Cat is the name given to a black oriental shorthair cat popularized in Scariest Stories style videos in late 2024 and early 2025, inspired by @offlainnnn audios and initially popularized by @idkcatmemes on TikTok and Instagram. Larry is often jokingly portrayed as an "evil" or villainous cat. The image of "Larry" looming over the camera, similar to other staring animal memes, originally comes from a cat named Dexter, whose owner runs the Instagram page @hobbikats. Oriental shorthair cats are sometimes called Kylo Ren cats due to their perceived resemblance to the actor Adam Driver.

Origin

Instagram^[1] user @hobbikats posted a slideshow of images showing her cat Dexter on April 15th, 2020. Dexter is an oriental shorthair cat, a breed known for their long snouts and deep voices. The post, including the deadpan photo of the cat staring into the camera that later became the Larry meme, gathered over 19,000 likes in five years.

The original voice-over typically used in videos about "Evil Larry" comes from a TikTok series created by TikToker^[2] @offlainnnn called, Try Not To Get Scared: Scariest Stories..

TikToker^[6] @idkcatmemes posted a video about "Larry" using the audio from an @offlainnnn video on October 24th, 2024, gathering over 1.3 million views and 280,000 likes in five months.

Spread

Another early use of the image of Dexter-as-Larry is an October 25th, 2024, Instagram^[3] video by user @idkcatmemes that gathered over 249,000 likes in five months.

On November 6th, 2024, @idkcatmemes posted another video to Instagram^[7] introducing the idea of "Evil Larry," gathering over 114,000 likes in three months.

The concept of an "Evil Larry" was adopted by other cat meme pages on TikTok^[8] in December 2024, as seen in a post by the account @sillycattingtons from December 15th, 2024, gathering over 1 million plays and 100,000 likes in three months.

Nate Richardson uploaded a still image of Dexter alongside the text "Larry" to GIPHY^[4] on December 23rd, 2024, gathering over 227 million views in two months.

On January 26th, 2025, TikToker^[5] @georgianielson posted a video showing her airbrushed artwork rendition of Larry, gathering over 1.5 million views and 300,000 likes in a month.

On February 10th, 2025, Instagram^[9] user @hobbikats made a post about how Dexter had become a meme called "Larry," and shared an original, unfiltered version of the image used in the meme. The post gathered over 140,000 likes in two weeks.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References