About

Wheelchair Cat refers to a GIF of a 3D-animated orange cat rolling in a wheelchair and falling out of it onto a cat bed. Used as a reaction image since 2011, in August 2018 a video version of the GIF gained spread after being featured by YouTuber Pyrocynical.

Origin

Before October 19th, 2011, an unknown Tumblr user uploaded a 3-second GIF of a 3D-animated orange cat rolling in a wheelchair, hitting a cat bed an falling into it. On October 19th, 2011, Know Your Meme user amanda b. archived the GIF on the website.^[1]

Spread

In the following years, the GIF saw moderate use as a reaction image, appearing on 4chan^[2][3] and other websites.

On May 2nd, 2015, YouTube user Nipple Sneakers uploaded a video based on the GIF to the website, with the video gaining over 119,000 views in four years (shown below).^[4]

On January 27th, 2018, YouTube user Pingu m9 uploaded a Gamecube Intro Remix of the video (shown below, left).^[5] The edit was featured in Instant Regret Clicking This Playlist and gained over 3.3 million views in 16 months. On August 11th, 2018, YouTuber Pyrocinical reacted to the clip in his video.^[6]

In the following days, the video gained significant popularity among the YouTuber's fanbase, with multiple edits of the video posted on YouTube and /r/pyrocynical subreddit.^[7] For example, an edit uploaded by YouTube user Alex The Doggo on August 14th, 2018, gained over 85,000 views in nine months (shown below, left).

In April 2019, the video saw an increase in popularity on Instagram, with notable edits posted by users professionalretard.mp4^[8] and fr1ck.mp4.^[9]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References