Speedycat — Yellow cartoon cat streaking through night sky with speed trail past crescent moon

Speedycat

2005flash animationdead

Published September 28, 2026

Speedycat is a yellow cat flash animation that spun out of a late-2005 4chan IRC typo, set to a Beatmania IIDX Engrish track and mirrored across early meme sites. The clickable moon that sent her into 'Warp Speed' made her one of 4chan's early cat mascots alongside Longcat.

cats flash animation memes 4chan memes earworm memes mid 2000s memes

Overview

The Speedycat flash shows a small yellow cat zooming through a starry space background while the Y&Co. track 'SPEEDY CAT' plays on loop1. Clicking the moon inside the animation triggers a 'Warp Speed' sequence where the cat accelerates with flashing lights and the song plays at double speed3. The visual joke is barely more than a sprite over a scrolling starfield, but the Engrish chorus, 'Give you my desire... Splendid like a fire...,' turned it into a repeat-play earworm7.

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The tagline 'Speedycat is speedy' echoes the Longcat template 'Longcat is loooong,' and Dagobah commenters explicitly paired the two, writing 'Speedycat is as speedy as Longcat is loooong' underneath mirrors of the flash1.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan (IRC and imageboard)
Date
2005

According to the Urban Dictionary account that circulated with the animation, the name Speedycat came from a late-2005 typo inside a 4chan IRC channel that regulars had nicknamed 'speedychat' for its constant spam3. An anonymous user misspelled it as 'Speedycat,' and another user quickly built a flash animation of a yellow cat streaking through space and posted it back to 4chan7. The soundtrack was pulled from 'SPEEDY CAT' by Y&Co., released on the Konami rhythm game Beatmania IIDX 11: IIDX RED in 20052. The original animator has never been identified.

How It Spread

The flash bounced through the early file-hosting circuit that carried most 4chan artifacts, landing on Dagobah, Photobucket, Sheepa.org and SWFchan3. In May 2006, the cat cameoed in '4chan City,' a music-video parody by animator NCH of the Newgrounds hit 'Nightmare City'5. On November 3, 2006, the first Speedycat page went up on YTMND under the user meowmeowlol4.

By 2007 Speedycat was already being filed as a relic. That year /b/ posters included her in a 'memes time has forgotten' thread on 4chan6. Dagobah mirror comments kept trickling in from fans as late as 20171, but she never crossed back into mainstream circulation.

Timeline

2005

'Speedychat' 4chan IRC channel is misspelled as 'Speedycat,' prompting an anonymous user to build the yellow-cat flash animation.

2005-02-02

Y&Co.'s 'SPEEDY CAT' releases on the Beatmania IIDX 11: IIDX RED soundtrack, later used as the flash's music.

2006-05

Speedycat cameos in the '4chan City' flash video by animator NCH, a parody of Newgrounds' 'Nightmare City.'

2006-11-03

First Speedycat YTMND page is created by user meowmeowlol.

2007

Speedycat appears in multiple /b/ threads on 4chan, including one labeling her a 'memes time has forgotten' entry.

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