Nyan Cat

Origin

Nyan Cat is a meme made up of an animated GIF of a pixel cat with a Pop-Tart body flying endlessly through space trailing a rainbow, and the looping "nya nya nya" song attached to it.

The artwork was created by American illustrator Chris Torres, known online as prguitarman. On April 2, 2011, he posted a GIF titled "Pop Tart Cat" on his website LOL-COMICS. It grew out of a Red Cross charity drawing event where he received the suggestions "cat" and "Pop-Tart," and the model was his Russian Blue cat, Marty.

The music was made separately: "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!" by Japanese Vocaloid producer Daniwell-P, originally written for Hatsune Miku, in a cover sung by the UTAU voice Momo Momone.

Spread

YouTube user saraj00n put the two together. The video, uploaded on April 5, 2011, set the GIF to the song and passed 1 million views in its first two weeks. The official NyanCat channel posted its video on April 12, and on April 13 the single-serving site nyan.cat launched, playing the song and counting how many seconds you had watched the cat fly.

That year Nyan Cat turned up all over the internet. On May 29, the hacker group LulzSec displayed Nyan Cat imagery when it hacked the website of U.S. public broadcaster PBS, and on June 16 YouTube added an Easter egg that turned its video progress bar into Nyan Cat, removing it on July 5. Marty, the cat who inspired it, died on November 1, 2012, and a sad version went up on nyan.cat in tribute.

Copyright and NFT

Torres actively enforced his rights to the character. In April 2013 he and Keyboard Cat creator Charlie Schmidt sued Warner Bros. for using both characters without permission in the Scribblenauts games, settling that September. The case is often cited as a precedent for meme creators securing commercial rights.

On February 18, 2021, the tenth anniversary, Torres auctioned a remastered Nyan Cat GIF as an NFT, which sold for 300 ETH (about $587,658 at the time). It is regarded as the sale that opened the way for early internet memes to be traded as NFTs.

Usage

• Shorthand for endlessly looping music or video: "an infinite loop, like Nyan Cat"
• Fan art and parody GIFs that swap in other characters or foods with a rainbow trail
• A nostalgic image symbolizing early-2010s internet culture

Sources

• Know Your Meme, "Nyan Cat" — the April 2, 2011 "Pop Tart Cat" post on LOL-COMICS and how it came about, Marty the cat, Daniwell-P's song and the Momo Momone cover, saraj00n's April 5 video and views, the official channel on April 12 and nyan.cat on April 13, the May 29 PBS hack, the YouTube progress bar from June 16 to July 5, Marty's death on November 1, 2012, the 2013 Warner Bros. lawsuit and settlement, the 300 ETH NFT sale on February 18, 2021