Meowjak

About

Meowjak refers to variations of the Wojak character depicted as a cat, often with a soy boy face alongside jokes about being a cat and about there being "241 Meowjaks." The earliest known Meowjak meme was posted to 4chan's /qa/ (questions and answers) board in June 2021, which was screenshotted and posted across social media. The post inspired further Meowjak variants over the following months.

Origin

On June 29th, 2021, an anonymous user of 4chan's^[1] /qa/ board posted an image of a cat drawn in a Wojak style with glasses and an aggressive-looking soyboy face, writing, ">>not understanding a common phrase and having a reading comprehension below a 3rd grade level" (shown below). The JPEG is titled "MEOWJAK."

Spread

The Meowjak spread across 4chan over the following months, inspiring new variations. On June 30th, 2021, an anonymous user posted a new Meowjak to 4chan's^[2] /qa/ board, writing, ">MEOW MEOW MEOW HAHAHAHA MEOW MEOW MEOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! though" (shown below). That day, an anon replied^[3] to the post with a Wojak that looks like Courage the Cowardly Dog, writing, ">Fuck ur meowjaks."

On July 18th, an anonymous 4chan^[4] user responded to a thread^[5] joking about being allergic to cats with the original Meowjak, the JPEG titled "Meowjak241," writing, ">You WILL clean my shitbox." In response, an anon wrote, "you do NOT have 241 meowjaks." Another anon then responded with a new Meowjak, sarcastically repeating, ">you do NOT have 241 meowjaks" (shown below). A screenshot of the interaction was shared to Reddit's /r/196^[6] subreddit that November, gaining over 2,700 upvotes in four months.

The idea of there being 241 Meowjaks became a running joke in future Meowjak memes as users named their own with a new number between one and 241. The phrase "You do NOT have 241 Wojaks" is often used on Meowjak posts as a copypasta. On August 22nd, an anonymous user of 4chan's^[7] /qa/ board posted the original Meowjak, writing, ">You WILL give me canned food >You WILL NOT give me dry kibble >You WILL clean my shitbox >You WILL scratch only the underside on my chin >You WILL NOT make loud airplane noises to frighten me" (shown below).

Screenshots of Meowjak posts and the Meowjaks in general received viral spread online through reposts. For example, on September 5th, Instagram^[8] page dieunheilige shared a Meowjak post, gaining over 11,000 likes in six months. On February 22nd, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @Chudayeen posted a Meowjak meme, gaining over 410 likes and 96 retweets in a week (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References