# Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast is a series of image macros built around a photo of a man calmly stroking his orange-and-white cat as a mushroom cloud approaches. The format broke out in early May 2021 on Reddit's /r/196 and Twitter, where fans turned a single doomed moment into a sprawling collaborative storyline with dozens of alternate endings. ## Origin The original photograph's provenance is unknown, but it circulated through Discord before anyone attached nuclear captions to it. According to the Know Your Meme entry, user h189 posted the picture to the GAYSEX2 Discord server on March 20, 2021, and user -Charon-7000 posted the first two caption edits three days later on March 23, with Charon7000 cross-posting the raw photo to /r/cats on March 24[3]. The template that actually went viral was built on April 9, 2021 by Discord user Furbybrennan, who paired the brightened image with the 'final moments together' caption and dropped it in the r/okbuddyretard Discord server[3]. Redditor Greygun98 reposted it to /r/okbuddyretard on April 13 under the title 'will miss you chugnus...,' and the post pulled over 19,200 upvotes in two weeks[2]. - **Platform:** Discord / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** Furbybrennan (template caption), with earliest edits by Discord user -Charon-7000 - **Date:** 2021 ## Overview The joke rides on the contrast between a tender domestic snapshot and the apocalyptic caption slapped on top of it. The source photo shows a man seated indoors, hand resting on a white-and-orange cat, with a blown-out window behind him that readers reinterpret as the shockwave of an incoming bomb[1][2]. The canonical caption, 'me petting my cat before the wave of the nuclear bomb hits us (it's our final moments together),' sets up the man and the cat, affectionately nicknamed Chugnus by posters, as a doomed pair facing their last seconds together[2]. What pushed the format past a one-off gag was the way /r/196 users treated the image as the opening frame of a story rather than a punchline[5]. Follow-up macros filled in sequels, prequels, and parallel storylines using ironic 'good ending / bad ending' bracket captions, and compilers later stitched the entries into branching timelines of what happens to the man, the cat, and the bystanders[7][3]. ## How to Use The template typically treats the original photo as a story prompt rather than a static reaction image. Common conventions include adding sequential captions, writing 'good ending' or 'bad ending' tags with ironic bracket explanations inside the image, and referring to the cat as Chugnus. Creators often chain their contributions to earlier macros to extend the shared timeline rather than invent a standalone joke. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast? It is a series of 2021 image macros using a photo of a man petting his cat while an implied nuclear detonation goes off behind him, captioned to frame the pair's final moments together[2]. ### Where did Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast come from? The source photo surfaced on Discord in March 2021, but the canonical caption template was built by Discord user Furbybrennan on April 9, 2021 and reposted to /r/okbuddyretard four days later[3]. ### What does Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast mean? It plays the quiet domestic scene against the apocalyptic context for dark humor, with later macros treating the setup as an open story that other posters can extend with alternate endings[5]. ### How do you use Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast? People typically add captions that continue or branch the story, often with ironic 'good ending' or 'bad ending' bracket explanations inside the image, chaining their entry to earlier macros in the shared timeline[7]. ### Is Me Petting My Cat Before the Nuclear Blast still popular? Its peak was the May 2021 /r/196 and Twitter run, where posts cleared tens of thousands of upvotes and likes within days; the dedicated /r/MePettingMyCat subreddit still catalogs the format[1][3]. ## References 1. [https://mobile.twitter.com/aitchwhore/status/1388711754776170496]() 2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/okbuddyretard/comments/mvgmtv/will_miss_you_chugnus/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/me-petting-my-cat-before-the-nuclear-blast]() 4. [https://twitter.com/citruscereal/status/1388742971781050368]() 5. [https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/n2x7kn/rule/]() 6. [https://twitter.com/phadingle/status/1388953855359074308]() 7. [https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/n46wc0/me_petting_my_cat_timeline_and_all_endings/]() 8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/n4jz5t/me_petting_my_cat_extended_timeline/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/me-petting-my-cat-before-the-nuclear-blast Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library