Standing Cat

2009viral videoclassic

Published September 29, 2026

Standing Cat is a viral 2009 YouTube clip of a French tabby named Rocky rising onto his hind legs on a bed, staring at something outside the frame while Yoko Kanno's 'Cats on Mars' plays. Uploaded by DaisYannou in November 2009, the 37-second video crossed over from French Facebook to the global web in April 2010, becoming an early anchor of the bipedal-cat video genre and inspiring costume Photoshops and a CGI Puss in Boots remix by Freddie Wong.

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Overview

Standing Cat is the nickname given to Rocky, a two-year-old French tabby who stands flat on his hind legs like a small furry person watching TV. The bit that made the clip travel is how casual he looks doing it, plus the twitch of his front right paw partway through, which reads on camera almost like a hand gesture1. Set to Yoko Kanno's dreamy 'Cats on Mars' from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, the whole thing plays less like a pet video and more like a mini music video2.

Rocky's owner Daisy later explained the behavior was mundane: he could not see the birds and passing dogs through the window from a normal cat height, so he propped himself up to get a better view3. Once his owners rearranged the furniture, he mostly stopped doing it3. That gap between the ordinary reason and the very human-looking pose is what fueled the remix wave, with editors Photoshopping capes, mariachi outfits and character costumes onto him4.

Standing Cat also became shorthand for a wider bipedal-cat video genre. Editors at Urlesque used Rocky as the anchor for a roundup of ten other cats caught doing the same thing, with some clips traced back to Japanese TV segments from 20061.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source) / Facebook and BuzzFeed (viral spread)
Creator
DaisYannou
Date
2009

On November 6, 2009, French YouTuber DaisYannou uploaded a 37-second clip of her tabby Rocky standing on his hind legs on a bed, staring at something off camera5. Rocky was two years old at the time, and Daisy said she and co-owner Yann never trained him to stand, he just did it on his own to look at birds outside the window3. She dubbed the video with Yoko Kanno's 'Cats on Mars,' the track that gives the clip its now-signature bounce2.

The upload sat quietly at first, circulating among Daisy's French Facebook friends rather than any English-speaking meme circuit1. It only broke out four months later, once the link jumped platforms.

How It Spread

In its first four months on YouTube, the clip picked up more than half a million views, mostly through shares among French Facebook users1. The jump to a global audience came on April 4, 2010, when BuzzFeed contributor Mathieu S. reposted it under the headline 'Standing Cat Is Watching You'1. From there, the video moved fast through the 2010 blog circuit: Boing Boing wrote it up on April 9 with fresh reporting from French internet journalist Aude Baron3, and coverage followed from The Daily What, Huffington Post and Geekologie1.

French mainstream press caught up the same month. Le Post interviewed Daisy about Rocky, who confirmed the bird-watching backstory and mentioned that Rocky can also sit upright on his rear3. Know Your Meme's moderator Tomberry ran a separate Q&A with Daisy about the video going viral, and later interviewed Freddie Wong about his remix1. A Facebook fan page called 'I Love Standing Cat' went up on April 8, 2010 and drew around 1,500 likes by November 20121.

The remix Standing Cat is best remembered for arrived from filmmaker Freddie Wong, who turned Rocky into a CGI Puss in Boots by compositing costume, sword and boots directly onto the original footage1. That version pulled roughly 5 million YouTube views by November 2012, briefly outrunning the clip that inspired it1.

How to Use This Meme

There is no real template beyond sharing or remixing the original clip. Common conventions include Photoshopping outfits and props onto Rocky mid-stand, dropping him into scenes from movies or games, and swapping the soundtrack while keeping the deadpan bipedal pose. It also often gets cited as the reference point whenever a new bipedal-cat video goes viral.

Frequently Asked Questions