Uncanny Cat

About

The Uncanny Cat, and its antithesis the Canny Cat, refers to two images of a staring cat who becomes "uncanny," as in, its face becomes darker and creepier, similar to Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny. The original Uncanny Cat is purportedly named Professor Jones, originally posted to Reddit in 2018. In early 2023, Discord users within a Roblox server for the community game DEAD AHEAD, created the Uncanny Cat emotes and GIFs, which then spread to other servers. Thereafter, the Uncany and Canny Cat GIFs and memes spread across social media sites like iFunny, Twitter and Instagram, among others. It's also been purported that the Uncanny Cat vs. Canny Cat memes and GIFs have a racist origin, acting as a "dog whistle" and symbol for "Black vs. white" racism.

Origin

On April 23rd, 2018, Redditor Lavonicus posted an image of their cat named Professor Jones to /r/cats,^[1] captioning the image, "When you accidentally switch to the front facing camera," and earning over 140 upvotes in five years (shown below).

The image of the cat was utilized on Discord as an emote as early as March 2022.^[2] The image was also used in various, semi-viral memes and posts prior to 2021 on platforms like iFunny.^[3] However, the image didn't receive viral acclaim, mass usage and the name "Uncanny Cat" until early 2023.

Prior to March 2023, Discord users within the DEAD AHEAD Discord^[6] (a server made for the Roblox community under the same name) were sharing "uncanny" images of cats, evident in messages^[7] dated as far back as February 18th, 2022. Many of the "uncanny" cat images used already viral cat images such as Wawa Cat and the Alien Cat, among others (examples shown below). Two stickers called "the ca penalty" and "ca 24.5 (the gremlin penalty)," the latter of which started being used by Discord^[8] user 15placek on March 10th, 2023 (shown below, right).

Within the DEAD AHEAD server, the first discovered sharing of the Uncanny Cat image was in a message sent by Discord^[9] user Amburgie on March 8th, 2023 (shown below).

Origin as Racist Dog Whistle

Following the later cross-platform virality of Uncanny Cat memes in June 2023, one of the main proponents of the meme within the DEAD AHEAD Discord server, user 15placek, claimed that "the origins of the uncanny and canny cat shit is racism" in a June 2023 message^[14] (shown below).

Spread

Currently, the first discovered cross-platform sharing of the Uncanny Cat image was posted to 4chan's /vg/^[4] board on March 13th, 2023 (shown below), surfacing again on /vg/^[5] later on March 13th.

On March 18th, 2023, the Canny Cat GIF was shared by Discord^[10] user 15placek, and on March 22nd, the Uncanny Cat image was shared by Discord^[11] user 15placek. Going into April 2023, Discord users 15placek and Amburgie would become the main proponents of the Uncanny and Canny Cat memes and GIFs, producing a majority of them.

For instance, the first discovered GIF within the server was sent by Discord^[12] user Amburgie on April 1st, 2023 (shown below, left). On April 5th, Discord^[13] user Krownistrophic142 shared an Uncanny Cat GIF that used the Krusty Krab from SpongeBob (shown below, right).

Going into May 2023, Uncanny Cat GIFs spread across Discord,^[15] spreading to other servers outside of DEAD AHEAD. On May 24th, 2023, the Twitter^[16] account @Cato_Collector posted its first tweet, establishing itself as an Uncanny Cat gimmick account. Going into June 2023, the account uploaded multiple Uncanny and Canny Cat GIFs and memes to Twitter via links from Discord (examples shown below).

Going into June 2023, the Uncanny and Canny Cat memes gained eminence on other platforms. For instance, notable Instagram^[17][18][19] user @owen_kung uploaded three separate posts in June 2023 which included Uncanny Cat memes.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

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External References