What is Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten?

It's an early-internet snowclone catchphrase and image macro that jokes about religious punishment for masturbation, usually shown as text over a Photoshop of two Domo-kun characters menacing a kitten.

Where did Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten come from?

The line first ran in BarFly magazine as a print flyer before 2000, then went viral online after a November 28, 2002 FARK.com Photoshop contest attached it to a Domo-kun image.

What does Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten mean?

It's an absurdist joke that frames masturbation as causing collateral harm to something innocent, mocking the guilt-inducing style of religious anti-porn messaging.

How do you use Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten?

Post the Domo-kun-and-kitten image, or swap the phrase into the template "Every time you [verb], [noun] [verb]s a [noun]" to mock-guilt someone about any activity.

Is Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten still popular?

It's a classic old-internet meme rather than an active trend. Google search interest peaked in the mid-2000s and drifted down from 2004, though references still show up on Urban Dictionary and older forum threads.

Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten

2002image macroclassic

Published August 20, 2026

Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten is a snowclone catchphrase and image macro that pairs a mock religious anti-masturbation warning with a picture of a threatened kitten. The phrase originated in BarFly magazine before 2000 and went viral through a November 2002 FARK.com Photoshop of two Domo-kun figures chasing a cat. It's still cited on old forum threads and even inspired the name of a Scottish sex party company.

snowclone memes catchphrase memes photoshop memes early internet memes shock humor memes

Overview

"Every Time You Masturbate God Kills A Kitten" is a snowclone catchphrase built around a photoshopped image macro pairing a mock religious warning with a picture of a doomed kitten1. The phrase gets flipped into the template "Every time you [verb], [noun] [verb]s a [noun]" for jokes about any activity the poster wants to guilt-trip someone about3.

The visual most people recognize shows two Domo-kun characters closing in on a small kitten, with the guilt-inducing warning text overlaid on the picture1. Before that image took over online, the same line circulated on paper flyers and in forwarded emails with a different picture attached1.

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Origin & Background

Platform

BarFly magazine (print) / FARK.com (viral spread)

Date

2002

The catchphrase first appeared in print in BarFly magazine sometime before 2000, according to an article on Cardhouse documenting its earliest known appearance1. Scanned copies of the flyer then started making the rounds as email chain forwards, which is how the slogan first crossed onto the internet1.

The signature Domo-kun image was created on November 28, 2002, inside a FARK.com Photoshop thread calling for a mock "get well" card for a porn addiction2. One entry stuck the BarFly slogan onto a picture of two Domo-kun figures chasing a kitten, and that mashup is what pushed the meme past its original print audience3.

How It Spread

The Domo-kun version bounced around FARK, 4chan, and email forwards, where it was reposted for years as shock-comedy filler, and Google search interest for "every time you masturbate" peaked in the mid-2000s before drifting downward from 20043.

The line got picked up by the Christian anti-porn ministry XXXchurch, which uses similar guilt-based framing in its outreach against pornography and sexual addiction4. It also inspired the name of Killing Kittens, a members-only Scottish sex party company that turned the joke into branding5.

By the 2010s the phrase had settled into old-internet-classic status, still quoted and re-defined on Urban Dictionary and older forum threads6.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically keeps the "Every time you [verb], [noun] [verb]s a [noun]" skeleton and swaps in whatever activity the poster wants to mock-guilt about1. Common versions replace "God" with a fictional character and "kittens" with something the audience finds cute, so the mock punishment lands as absurdly out of scale with the offense.