Banana Cat

Origin

Banana Cat is an image of a cat in a banana costume, crying. It begins with a compilation edit of cats in banana suits posted by the Facebook user Sin Achilles on March 3rd, 2021, which gathered over 7,700 reactions and 26,000 shares across the following two years.

At that stage, though, Banana Cat was simply a set of cute cat pictures. It hardened into the crying cat we know two years later, through its entanglement with another meme.

Spread

The decisive factor was the Happy Happy Happy Cat trend. On March 17th, 2023 the TikTok user @happyhappiihappy posted a video showing a sad cat in a banana suit going to hospital — the earliest documented appearance of Sad Banana Cat.

That set the structure: pair the perpetually smiling Happy Cat with the perpetually weeping Banana Cat and build a short narrative in which one enjoys itself while the other suffers. Cats in other fruit costumes, apple among them, were added to the cast, and fan art and home-made animations followed.

Usage

• A reaction image exaggerating sadness, loneliness or disappointment
• Edits setting it beside Happy Cat to contrast their fortunes
• Short narrative videos in which the cats go through various misfortunes

The joke rests on the mismatch between a cute drawing and a weeping face, and it is rarely used to convey genuine sadness in earnest.

Sources

• Know Your Meme, ‘Sad Banana Cat’ — Sin Achilles’s Facebook compilation of March 3rd, 2021 (7,700 reactions, 26,000 shares); @happyhappiihappy’s TikTok of March 17th, 2023; the link to the Happy Happy Happy Cat trend
• Know Your Meme, ‘Banana and Apple Cat’ image entry — the expansion into other fruit characters