About

Scared Hamster, also known as Hamster Screaming or Scared Mouse Meme, is a series of reaction image macros of a hamster (often confused with a mouse) with its mouth agape against the wall of a cage. The image has been used to express fear and/or disgust in numerous memes or reactions since it emerged in the mid-2010s. It is also sometimes used as an exploitable format and edited to include other elements, such as a cross being held in the animal's hand.

Origin

On June 9th, 2016, Twitter ^[1] user @m0vingdae tweeted a video of a hamster screaming as the filmer attempts to fill its food bowl. They captioned the video, "This is a video of a hamster screaming at me because I'm trying to change his food." The post received more than 2,000 retweets, 5,500 likes and 173,000 views (shown below).

Two years later, the same user, under the Twitter name @dattebanyan, tweeted^[2] a screenshot of the hamster screaming. They captioned the photograph, "Back when I worked at petsmart I took this picture of this hamster who literally screamed every time I tried to feed him and omfg I’m crying." The post received more than 125,000 retweets and 425,000 likes in five days.

Spread

That day, following the post, people responded to the photograph with a series of jokes about and photoshops of the hamster (examples below).

Additionally, Redditor ^[3] daviddefnitely posted the photograph in the /r/funny subreddit. The post received more than 11,000 points (95% upvoted) and 375 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References