About

Pépito The Cat is a French black cat whose movements in and out of his home are automatically tracked by a camera linked to his Twitter bot account @PepitoTheCat. The cat has been a trending topic on the platform since 2016, resurfacing in July 2023 as people began to comment as ironic fans of the cat eagerly waiting for his return home or mourning his departure. Pepito has also become the subject of numerous fan art depictions over the years.

Origin

The French Clément Storck started the Twitter account @PepitoTheCat^[1] on July 2011 after he created an online tool that can send notifications for life events, like when his cat passed through the door, "you can get a notification, send a Tweet, get an email," he explained to Vice^[2] in a November 18th, 2016, article. He uploaded a demo video on YouTube^[3] on August 5th, 2022, which garnered only 60 views and three likes in roughly a year (shown below).

The automation set up on a cat door tracks Pépito's movements that lead to the outdoors and sends a tweet with a photo (example shown below), a message and a timestamp whenever his pet goes in or out. One of Pépito's earliest viral tweets^[4] was posted on December 24th, 2014, which garnered over 6,000 likes and 3,300 retweets in nine years.

Identity

Pépito was born in 2007 and his owner, Clément Storck, has had him since he was four months old. Online, the cat has accumulated over 600,000 followers on Twitter and 12,000 followers on Instagram^[4] as of July 2023 (example posts shown below).

Spread

The cat became a trending topic in Brazil on June 8th, 2017, when he went out and "disappeared" for more than 22 hours, according to a BuzzFeed^[5] article. Following the disappearance, Brazilian fans started to post messages and memes worried about Pépito's safety. For example, on the same day, Twitter^[6] user @juzao commented on the lasted "Pépito is out" post asking him to go back to her (shown below), which received roughly 110 likes and 13 retweets in six years.

Pépito's owner explained a day later, on June 9th, 2017, that the cat sometimes uses the "human door," which is not linked to the Twitter-bot automation. The post^[7] (shown below) garnered over 3,500 likes and 2,000 retweets in six years.

Pépito Fandom

Throughout the years, Pépito's Twitter account has grown into an expressive fandom that eagerly awaits for the cat to return home or mourns his departure each time a post is made. For instance, on July 20th, 2023, Twitter^[8] user @Beetle_Juicr posted a Two Guys On A Bus meme in which one side says "Pépito is out" and the other "Pépito is back home." The post (shown below, left) garnered over 880 likes and 48 retweets in a day. That same day, Twitter^[9] user @JoestarJoaco uploaded a neuro representation of what it feels like when Pépito is back home. The post (shown below, right) received roughly 40 likes and two retweets in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References