People Are Sharing Pictures Of Their Cats Standing Upright Like Humans & It's Too Damn LOL
It's the joke format that never gets stale: Pets acting like their peoples, exhibiting behaviors that might be considered human-like.
"Thought my cat was a shampoo bottle for a solid 10 minutes"
We were reminded of this truism earlier in the week when #humancat surfaced unexpectedly on Twitter's leaderboard of the most popular hashtags.
But it didn't take long to unpack why.
Patient zero in this latest viral outbreak, you see, was Frank, a tuxedo kitty photographed at the exact right moment, intently scanning the horizon while perched upright on his hind legs.
"This is my friend's daughter's cat. His name is Frank. And basically I think he should be trending. #humancat," opined Luci Gosling, a UK-based writer and illustrator.
Because content is gonna content, commenters on the microblogging platform found it both totally adorbs and relatable AF. Naturally enough, they were quick to post similar images of their own.
"Mine does it too! 😂 #humancat," added a second.
"Her posture is better than mine," quipped another.
"Here’s my cat. His name is Dennis. And I basically think that he’s Frank’s distant cousin from Sweden," introduced a fourth.
"Frank would get along great with my boy, Otis."
Be them fancy siamese ...
... tabby tigers ...
... or this black-and-tan, peanut butter dabbed cutie pie ...
... all signs pointed to a massive ...
... and imminent kitty conspiracy to infiltrate the human species.
As with any good meme, this one was successfully circulated because, well, it had solid legs under it — that is to say, users starting bending the concept around other tropes and other trending topics.
A succession of hastily assembled Photoshops quickly followed.
@MarkESutter via Twitter
As did unlikely but revealing comparisons:
"Thank you @ucigosling for showing us the true inspiration for The Lion Man of the #IceAge."
Some even dared cross streams, remixing the original meme with a second from the world of sports.
@ZachsCrewCF via Twitter
So strong is the standing cat movement in fact that readers continue to flood Twitter with bipedal felines more than four days after the #hashtag viraled out.
Here are some of the best snaps posted just in the last couple of hours.
"Trixie the #humancat 😻😹"
"Aww, reminds me of a cat I had called Merlin"
"This is my cat Chester and he thinks he's a #humancat"
Still not everyone was 100% onboard with these developments.
Some found it disturbing while others read it as a portent of apocalyptic doom.
"This is how the age of humans will end," warned (joked?) one man ominously.
This is how the age of humans will end – 'cos even without opposable thumbs, our newly front-paw-liberated feline chums will work out how to operate all sorts, like cars, then auto-tellers, then guns.....!
— Ken (@kenmccoll) April 22, 2018
Your turn: Are standing kittos wired or tired? Share your thots in the comment section below!