Staring Hamster

About

Staring Hamster is a reaction image macro of a hamster looking directly at the camera.

Origin

The earliest known use of the hamster reaction was used on January 13th, 2019 by TikTok user @beanboy22.^[1] In the video, the user lipsyncs a scene from the web series The Real Bros of Simi Valley.^[2] The post received more than 124,000 reactions and 13,000 shares in one week.

Spread

On January 16th, 2019, Instagram user benisblaster edited the video to loop the hamster silently staring into the camera to Instagram. This post received more than 15,000 views and 4,183 likes in one week (shown below).

On January 18th, 2019, iFunny users Avuelix^[4] and Jepsi^[5] posted memes imagining a Facetime call between Staring Hamster and Staring Kanye (shown below, left and right). The posts received over 8,300 and 5,400 smiles in one year, respectively.

On January 17th, iFunny ^[4] user JEPSI posted a video of the hamster video chatting on Apple's Facetime application with the hamster. The post received more than 4,600 upvotes (shown below, left). On the same day, iFunny^[5] user Avuelix uploaded a version of the video from the opposite perspective (shown below, right).

Two days later, on January 19th, Twitter ^[3] user @Slazo shared Avuelix's version of the meme. The tweet received more than 32,000 retweets and 87,000 likes within three days (shown below).

pic.twitter.com/tpdT5yv2g0

— Slazo (@Slazo) January 19, 2019

Hamster Cult

In February 2021, fans of the singer Lana del Ray began expressing their fandom through a faux group called "Lana del Ray cult." To join the group, one must change their avatar photo to a picture of del Ray smiling. Within 24 hours, the trend went viral on TikTok, with many changing their pictures to that of Lana del Ray.

However, the emergence of the group inspired parodies to mock the fandom. On February 20th, 2021, Twitter^[6] user @Camellia_Alexan tweeted screenshots of a conversation on TikTok in which the Lana del Ray cult members were bombarded with people from other cults, including one called "Hamster Cult" (shown below).

Hamster Cult soon grew as a trend in a similar fashion to Lana del Ray cult, with memers following each other en masse. To join, people need only to change their TikTok avatar to the picture of the Staring Hamster. On February 20th, Twitter user @intolouve posted a video, stating that they joined Hamster Cult and were inundated with follows from other members (shown below).

DO NOT JOIN THE HAMSTER CULT ON TIK TOK 💀 I DID IT AND THIS HAPPENED pic.twitter.com/EReF4os784

— chlo ᵕ̈ (@intolouve) February 20, 2021

That day, Twitter^[7] user @walterhastalent tweeted, "oh my gosh 286 hamsters in my basement. If you don’t know what the hamster cult is it’s a tiktok cult of hamsters and the mascot is the meme staring hamster. Basically we hate Lana Del Rey and it’s a tiktok war. So join hamster cult today" (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References