What is Thumbs Up Crying Cat?

A reaction image of a cat with photoshopped teary eyes giving a thumbs up, used to convey reluctant compliance or masking sadness behind a polite response.

Where did Thumbs Up Crying Cat come from?

Redditor IAMAdumbgirl posted the original photoshopped image to /r/sadcats on June 17, 2019 with the caption "sad thumbs up".

What does Thumbs Up Crying Cat mean?

It signals forced positivity or agreement while feeling awful, pairing an outward okay gesture with visible sadness.

How do you use Thumbs Up Crying Cat?

Drop the image under a first-person caption about accepting bad news, giving a polite reply through distress, or hiding how you actually feel.

Is Thumbs Up Crying Cat still popular?

It saw major spread through 2020 on Reddit and Twitter, including a mijuzz7 post to /r/dankmemes that pulled over 47,000 upvotes.

Thumbs Up Crying Cat

2019reaction imageclassic

Published July 25, 2026

Thumbs Up Crying Cat is a reaction image of a cat with photoshopped teary eyes giving a thumbs up, first posted to Reddit in June 2019. It caught on in April 2020 as a way to signal reluctant compliance or fake positivity through obvious sadness.

cats reaction memes photoshop memes suppressed emotion memes subreddit origin memes

Overview

Thumbs Up Crying Cat is a reaction image showing a cat with photoshopped teary eyes giving a thumbs up. It also goes by Thumbs Up Sad Cat or Crying Cat Meme with Hand3. The combination reads as reluctant compliance, a way of saying okay while very clearly not being okay.

The image builds on the earlier Crying Cat template, itself a photoshopped variant of Serious Cat with glassy, watery eyes edited on top3. Adding the thumb shifts the emotional register from straight sadness into something closer to forced positivity, which is what gave this specific version its own life as a distinct reaction from plain Crying Cat.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Reddit (r/sadcats)

Creator

IAMAdumbgirl

Date

2019

Redditor IAMAdumbgirl posted the photoshopped image to /r/sadcats on June 17, 2019 with the caption "sad thumbs up"1. The post picked up more than 1,700 upvotes at a 99% approval ratio over the following year1.

Earlier building blocks existed. On August 26, 2017, a Discord user in the JabGood server posted an emote of the same cat with a raised hand, and a version with added tears surfaced on November 11, 20173.

How It Spread

The reaction image took off in April 2020. On April 18, Twitter user @SaoryEmanoelle replied to a @RespectfulMemes post about one-sided friendships, using the image captioned "They not thinking about us though lmao"4.

On June 22, 2020, Redditor edmemesthrowawaybby posted it to /r/EDanonymemes with a caption about intrusive body-image thoughts during a hug with a boyfriend, pulling over 200 upvotes at 100% approval5.

The image hit /r/dankmemes later that summer. On July 27, 2020, user mijuzz7 posted a captioned version there that pulled over 47,000 upvotes at 96% approval inside three days2.

How to Use This Meme

People typically drop the image under a caption about accepting a bad outcome, giving a polite response through obvious distress, or agreeing to something they actually hate. First-person captions about relationships, body image, mental health, or awkward social replies are common conventions2. The joke lands when the text says fine and the picture says otherwise.