I Made You a Cookie, But I Eated It

2005catchphraseclassic

Published September 24, 2026

"I Made You a Cookie, But I Eated It" is a LOLcat catchphrase that jumped from a 2005 Pon and Zi web comic into the early cat-macro wave, where it fused with photos of a Japanese Munchkin named BeiBei. The line became an early cornerstone of the 2006-2007 LOLcat boom on Flickr and Icanhascheezburger.

lolcat memescatchphrase memescaptioned animal memeswebcomic memescats

Overview

The format pairs a mock apology, delivered in the mangled "eated" grammar, with a sad or sheepish subject1. The most-copied version uses a cat with drooping eyes or a slumped posture, but early runs of the caption also sat under celebrity photos and web comic panels for the same cuteness-guilt effect4. The joke works on two beats: a confession of gluttony paired with a face too sweet to actually be sorry.

BeiBei, a cream tabby Munchkin cat, gave the line its signature visual pairing thanks to a set of shy standing shots his owner posted to Flickr3. Later remixes dropped BeiBei and applied the caption to sitcom stills, reaction folders, and merch art, which is how the meme rolled into the wider Icanhascheezburger catalog2.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt (Pon and Zi comic) / Flickr and Icanhascheezburger (viral spread)
Creator
Jeff Thomas
Date
2005

The catchphrase comes from a 2005 strip in the Pon and Zi web comic by artist Azuzephre, whose real name is Jeff Thomas1. Thomas first posted the strip to his DeviantArt account on January 29, 20051. The line predates the wider LOLcat trend that later adopted it, and the broken past tense "eated" was intentional character voice from the Pon and Zi cast rather than the cat-speak style that showed up on Flickr the following year4.

How It Spread

Late 2005 and early 2006, Japanese Flickr user Babykailan uploaded photo albums of a cream tabby Munchkin cat named BeiBei3. On March 23, 2006, Babykailan posted two shots of BeiBei awkwardly standing on his back legs, both taken the same day, one with the tail visible and one without3. Those images actually pre-date the later Standing Cat format that spun off from the same album.

The tail-less shot turned up in Flickr user TheBoyOnaBike's LOLcat folder on September 13, 2006, paired with the Pon and Zi caption4. The macro then hit ErrorAccessDenied on November 13, 2006, and reached Icanhascheezburger in January 2007, which is where most casual internet users first saw it2.

Popularity grew fast enough that BeiBei got his own dedicated Flickr album, the first example slot in Urban Dictionary's LOLcat entry, and a Cafepress store fronted by an illustration from artist IronyDesign5.

How to Use This Meme

Common convention keeps the misspelling "eated" to preserve the LOLcat voice, and captions typically split the line across a two-panel top-and-bottom image macro, with the setup above the subject and the punchline below the face4. Any sheepish, wide-eyed, or drooping animal photo works, though a cat with a guilty expression is the historical default3.

Frequently Asked Questions