Happy Cat

2003image macroclassic

Happy Cat is a smiling British Shorthair whose photograph became the visual anchor of the LOLcats format after circulating on Something Awful in the mid-2000s. In 2007, someone slapped the caption 'I Can Has Cheezburger?' onto the picture, launching a website of the same name and turning the cat into one of the founding icons of internet cat culture.

lolcat memescatsimage macro memesexploitable templatessomething awful memes

Overview

The Happy Cat template is a photograph of a plump grey-and-white British Shorthair sitting upright with an open-mouthed grin, its teeth showing in a look that reads as delighted or dumbfounded depending on the caption3. Editors treat the picture as a blank slate for image macros, dropping white Impact-font captions across the top and bottom in the standard LOLcats style4. The pose is neutral enough that the same face works for wholesome food cravings, feigned confusion, and mock existential dread.

The cat's real biography sits in dispute. Some sources identify the animal as Frank, a British Shorthair born in 1994 who died in 2007, while a Russian blog post from corpuscola calls it Misha and lists a 2003 birth year6. Neither account has ever been confirmed, and Happy Cat's exact identity was never resolved in any published record3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Happycat.ru / Something Awful (viral spread)
Date
2003

The earliest tracked appearance of the picture online is on the site of a Russian cat food brand also called Happy Cat, where the animal appeared as a secondary figure as early as 20032. From there the image jumped to English-language forums through Something Awful; the poster commonly credited as FancyCat is likely the 'Fancy Cat' account registered on the forum in 2002, though that user's post history is incomplete5.

The earliest verifiable Something Awful sighting is dated May 12th, 2004, in an article titled 'The Grocery Gauntlet' by Reid 'Frolixo' Paskiewicz1. Meme reference sites like YTMND Wiki and Encyclopedia Dramatica both point back to Something Awful as the launchpad for the picture's spread across the English-speaking web4.

How It Spread

In 2007, an anonymous editor pasted the caption 'I Can Has Cheezburger?' across the top of the Happy Cat photo. That single edit kicked off the LOLcats format and inspired the I Can Has Cheezburger website, which turned captioned cat photos into a mainstream meme category3.

The same face was reused for NEDM, short for 'Not Even Doom Music,' a YTMND-era catchphrase that attached itself to the cat's grin and lived on through image macros7. Another spinoff, 'Oh God How Did This Get In Here I Am Not Good With Computer,' pairs a poorly cropped version of the picture with a self-deprecating admission of tech illiteracy, used online as an ironic reply to anyone doing something clumsy with a computer3.

Meme historians credit Happy Cat as one of the small handful of images that seeded the LOLcats era, with every downstream template from Cheezburger to NEDM tracing back to the same open-mouthed grin4.

How to Use This Meme

Typical Happy Cat macros pair the photo with two lines of white Impact-font text in the classic LOLcats convention, often written in broken 'LOLspeak' English. The top line commonly sets up a mock request or observation and the bottom line delivers the punchline, as with the founding 'I Can Has Cheezburger?' caption3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Happy Cat

2003image macroclassic

Happy Cat is a smiling British Shorthair whose photograph became the visual anchor of the LOLcats format after circulating on Something Awful in the mid-2000s. In 2007, someone slapped the caption 'I Can Has Cheezburger?' onto the picture, launching a website of the same name and turning the cat into one of the founding icons of internet cat culture.

lolcat memes cats image macro memes exploitable templates something awful memes

Overview

The Happy Cat template is a photograph of a plump grey-and-white British Shorthair sitting upright with an open-mouthed grin, its teeth showing in a look that reads as delighted or dumbfounded depending on the caption3. Editors treat the picture as a blank slate for image macros, dropping white Impact-font captions across the top and bottom in the standard LOLcats style4. The pose is neutral enough that the same face works for wholesome food cravings, feigned confusion, and mock existential dread.

The cat's real biography sits in dispute. Some sources identify the animal as Frank, a British Shorthair born in 1994 who died in 2007, while a Russian blog post from corpuscola calls it Misha and lists a 2003 birth year6. Neither account has ever been confirmed, and Happy Cat's exact identity was never resolved in any published record3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Happycat.ru / Something Awful (viral spread)
Date
2003

The earliest tracked appearance of the picture online is on the site of a Russian cat food brand also called Happy Cat, where the animal appeared as a secondary figure as early as 20032. From there the image jumped to English-language forums through Something Awful; the poster commonly credited as FancyCat is likely the 'Fancy Cat' account registered on the forum in 2002, though that user's post history is incomplete5.

The earliest verifiable Something Awful sighting is dated May 12th, 2004, in an article titled 'The Grocery Gauntlet' by Reid 'Frolixo' Paskiewicz1. Meme reference sites like YTMND Wiki and Encyclopedia Dramatica both point back to Something Awful as the launchpad for the picture's spread across the English-speaking web4.

How It Spread

In 2007, an anonymous editor pasted the caption 'I Can Has Cheezburger?' across the top of the Happy Cat photo. That single edit kicked off the LOLcats format and inspired the I Can Has Cheezburger website, which turned captioned cat photos into a mainstream meme category3.

The same face was reused for NEDM, short for 'Not Even Doom Music,' a YTMND-era catchphrase that attached itself to the cat's grin and lived on through image macros7. Another spinoff, 'Oh God How Did This Get In Here I Am Not Good With Computer,' pairs a poorly cropped version of the picture with a self-deprecating admission of tech illiteracy, used online as an ironic reply to anyone doing something clumsy with a computer3.

Meme historians credit Happy Cat as one of the small handful of images that seeded the LOLcats era, with every downstream template from Cheezburger to NEDM tracing back to the same open-mouthed grin4.

How to Use This Meme

Typical Happy Cat macros pair the photo with two lines of white Impact-font text in the classic LOLcats convention, often written in broken 'LOLspeak' English. The top line commonly sets up a mock request or observation and the bottom line delivers the punchline, as with the founding 'I Can Has Cheezburger?' caption3.

Frequently Asked Questions