Popcat
Popcat is an internet meme originating in October 2020 from images and videos of a domestic shorthair cat named Oatmeal, owned by British Twitter user @xbqbw, depicting the cat alternately opening and closing its mouth to mimic a "popping" sound, which rapidly spread across social media platforms.[1][2] The meme inspired a simple browser-based clicking game launched in December 2020 by three computer science students—Joshua O'Sullivan, Edward Hails, and Freddy Heppell—at the University of Sheffield, where users click on the cat's image to toggle its mouth open, incrementing a global counter that tracks clicks per second and features competitive leaderboards for countries and teams.[3][4] The game's mechanics, centered on rapid clicking to achieve high pop rates, led to widespread viral engagement, particularly in regions like Hong Kong, Thailand, and Malaysia, where organized groups and automated tools pushed national scores into hundreds of thousands of clicks per second, turning it into a lighthearted online competition phenomenon by mid-2021.[5][6][7] Popcat's enduring appeal stems from its minimalistic design and meme-driven humor, fostering community rivalries without formal monetization in its original form, though derivatives like mobile apps and Roblox integrations have extended its presence.[8][9] In 2023, the meme spawned a Solana blockchain memecoin named POPCAT, which leverages the cat imagery for community tipping and trading, achieving notable market traction with a price fluctuating around $0.16 USD as of late 2025 amid broader cryptocurrency meme trends, though it remains distinct from the core game.[10][11] No major controversies have arisen from Popcat's ecosystem, which emphasizes casual entertainment over substantive utility or ideological messaging.[12]Meme Origins
The Original Video and Cat
The Popcat meme traces its origins to a domestic short-haired cat named Oatmeal, owned by the Twitter user @XavierBFB. On October 10, 2020, the owner uploaded a short video to Twitter (now deleted) depicting Oatmeal chirping at a bug, in which the cat's mouth opens wide into an exaggerated O-shape during its natural vocalizations.[13][1] This footage captured the cat's instinctive hunting behavior, where felines often produce chirp-like sounds to mimic prey or express excitement, providing the raw visual and auditory basis for the meme's "pop" effect without any editing or staging at the time of recording.[13] Prior to the video's Twitter post, still images extracted from the same clip—showing Oatmeal's mouth in closed and open positions—were shared organically on an unspecified Discord server in early October 2020. These images received limited initial attention, with a Reddit edit posted to the /r/MEOW_IRL subreddit on October 9, 2020, garnering only 122 upvotes over the subsequent month before the post's deletion.[1] The video's upload followed this modest exposure, disseminated through personal social media without promotional efforts, reflecting the cat's appeal rooted in unadulterated animal expressiveness rather than manufactured content.[1] Reuploads of the original video began appearing on platforms like YouTube in late 2020, but early viewership remained niche, with no records of massive immediate traction on the Twitter original beyond contextual shares in meme communities. Oatmeal's behaviors in the clip—fixated staring, rapid mouth movements, and chirps—exemplify typical predatory instincts in cats, verifiable through basic ethological observations of avian mimicry in domestic felines, which contributed to the footage's inherent comedic timing and shareability.[1][13]Rise as an Internet Phenomenon
The Pop Cat meme originated from images of a domestic shorthair cat named Oatmeal, owned by Twitter user @XavierBFB, which were shared on Discord prior to October 9, 2020, and edited to depict the cat alternating between a closed mouth and an exaggerated open "O" shape synchronized with a "pop" sound effect.[1] The first public posting occurred on October 9, 2020, when Redditor Skettidragon uploaded the edited images to the subreddit /r/MEOW_IRL, receiving 122 upvotes before the post was deleted.[1] This niche debut quickly escalated into broader visibility the following day, October 10, 2020, via a tweet by @partitiongal featuring the alternating images set to the pop audio, which amassed 1.6 million views, 57,100 retweets, and 161,600 likes, marking the meme's initial viral breakthrough on Twitter.[1][14] By mid-October 2020, user-generated content propelled the meme's dissemination across platforms including Instagram, iFunny, Facebook, and Tenor, with early adaptations such as lip-sync videos (e.g., an October 20, 2020, Instagram post by @ideiasvirgin) and four-panel reaction formats (e.g., a Twitter post by @yachifumis on October 23, 2020).[1] These edits emphasized the meme's simple, reactive humor, syncing the pop sound with surprise expressions, gaming fails, or comedic timing, fostering organic replication without centralized promotion. A notable iFunny post by user cattsu garnered 1,600 "smiles," while a Twitter variant by @WhatTheFuaack achieved 25,300 retweets and 15,100 likes, illustrating platform-specific traction driven by shares and remixes.[1] The meme's unscripted evolution relied on community contributions, including GIF integrations on Tenor and soundboard usages, which amplified its adaptability for quick-reaction contexts across social media.[1] Resurgence intensified into 2021, with TikTok videos and Twitter compilations highlighting the meme's peak as a staple for humorous reactions, evidenced by dedicated trend explainers like a January 27, 2021, TikTok from Know Your Meme outlining its viral mechanics. This period saw millions of indirect engagements through embedded uses in broader content, underscoring a user-led spread characterized by iterative edits over orchestrated campaigns, as the format's minimalism invited widespread, low-barrier participation on short-form video and microblogging sites.[1]Popcat.click Game
Core Mechanics and Features
Popcat.click operates as a minimalist web-based clicker game built primarily with HTML and JavaScript, centering on the core action of the original Popcat meme. Users interact by repeatedly clicking an image of the cat with its mouth closed, which triggers an animation of the mouth opening into an "O" shape, paired with a sharp popping sound effect to mimic the meme's auditory essence.[15][16] Each successful click registers server-side to increment a global total counter and a per-country tally, derived from the user's IP-based geolocation, enabling real-time competitive tracking without local storage manipulation vulnerabilities.[17][18] The game's design prioritizes addictive simplicity through immediate feedback loops: visual mouth animation, sound reinforcement, and instantaneous counter updates displayed on the page, eschewing complex progression systems, levels, or upgrades.[15] Real-time country rankings appear as a dynamic leaderboard, aggregating clicks to rank nations globally and highlight the leading country's flag and total, which updates continuously to reflect ongoing user activity worldwide.[18] This server-managed aggregation prevents discrepancies from client-side tampering, as all data persists centrally regardless of individual sessions.[19] Notably, the core version includes no in-game purchases, advertisements, or monetization elements, focusing purely on engagement via the meme's repetitive "pop" mechanic to drive voluntary participation and counter escalation.[20] Launched on December 11, 2020, by developers Freddy Heppell, Joshua O'Sullivan, and Edward Hails—students at the University of Sheffield—the site's architecture supports high-volume concurrent clicks through efficient backend handling, as evidenced by its sustained operation amid peak global usage.[21][19]Global Spread and Engagement
Following its launch in December 2020, Popcat.click experienced a gradual initial uptake before exploding in popularity during 2021, primarily through social media platforms and word-of-mouth among online communities. The addition of an international leaderboard in early 2021 catalyzed this growth, first drawing significant attention in Vietnam before rapidly spreading to Nordic countries in April.[22] By mid-2021, the game's viral momentum aligned with global events like the Tokyo Olympics, where participants channeled competitive energy into leaderboard battles rather than athletic competitions, fostering organized clicking efforts across nations.[15] This internationalization was amplified by the game's inherently simple, language-independent mechanics—requiring only rapid mouse clicks on a static image—making it accessible and appealing in diverse cultural contexts without barriers like complex rules or localization needs.[23] Competitive dynamics emerged as a core driver of engagement, with players forming informal national teams to vie for top positions on the global leaderboard, which tracks aggregate clicks by country. Asian nations dominated these rivalries, exemplified by Thailand surging to the number-one spot in August 2021 with peak rates approaching 700,000 clicks per second during coordinated pushes, reflecting collective mobilization via local social networks.[5] Hong Kong overtook the lead by November 2021, amassing over 121 billion total clicks and averaging more than 4.7 million daily additions in the preceding two months, sustained by relentless group efforts that blurred lines between recreation and pseudo-nationalistic fervor.[16] Such rivalries tapped into innate competitive psychology, where the meme's familiarity—rooted in the original Popcat video's absurdity—combined with real-time leaderboard feedback to encourage marathon sessions, often shared via screenshots and calls-to-action on platforms like Reddit.[24] Verifiable participation metrics underscore the scale: by late 2021, worldwide clicks had surpassed hundreds of billions, with peaks during these national campaigns implying daily totals in the tens of billions at intensity highs, as inferred from momentary rates scaled to full days.[12] Live streaming integrations, particularly on Twitch, further boosted visibility through event-style broadcasts of endurance clicking, though data remains anecdotal due to the game's decentralized play.[25] This global frenzy highlighted the game's cross-cultural resonance, where minimalistic design and quantifiable progress metrics outweighed linguistic or regional differences, driving sustained engagement without reliance on narrative or skill progression.[26]Imitations and Variations
The viral mechanics of Popcat.click inspired a range of unauthorized digital adaptations across independent game hosting sites and app stores, often incorporating minor modifications like progression systems or platform-specific features while retaining the core clicking interaction with the meme's cat imagery.[27] On itch.io, multiple browser-based variants emerged in 2022, including "Popcat clicker" by NorielSylvire, released October 7, which added idle accumulation elements to automate pops beyond manual clicks, and "Popcat Clicker Game" by Drackboy, an offline Android port emphasizing persistent progress.[28][29] These extensions proliferated due to the meme's open accessibility, enabling creators to remix the public video source without initial barriers.[30] Mobile adaptations further diversified the format, with apps on Google Play and iOS stores introducing structured challenges. For instance, "Pop Cat" by LinkDesks on Google Play, featuring over 1,000 puzzle levels involving cat-themed block matching and popping, amassed 125,660 ratings by late 2025.[8] A closer mechanical imitation, "PopCat Click" on iOS by Kai Yan Lee, released March 31, 2023, allowed users to interact with seven variant cats that open their mouths on taps, preserving the auditory pop feedback.[31] Such apps often bundled additional sound effects or visual tweaks, though core fidelity to the original click counter varied.[32] In gaming ecosystems like Roblox, Popcat integrated as a nextbot entity in pursuit-based experiences, such as in Evade, added September 24, 2022, during the Unusual Update, where the cat model chases players across maps using meme-derived animations.[9] Similar nextbot appearances occurred in titles like Nico's Nextbots and Become a Nextbot, adapting the static clicker into dynamic horror elements without altering the source meme's essence.[33][34] These variations highlight ecosystem expansion through fan-driven ports, though no centralized enforcement against copies has been documented, reflecting the meme's decentralized origins.[35]POPCAT Memecoin
Launch and Blockchain Integration
The POPCAT token launched on December 12, 2023, as a community-driven memecoin on the Solana blockchain, directly inspired by the viral Popcat meme's imagery of a cat opening and closing its mouth with accompanying sound effects.[36] The launch occurred via a fair mechanism on the Raydium decentralized exchange, featuring no presale or venture capital allocation to ensure equitable access for participants.[37] [36] The token's total supply was fixed at approximately 979.97 million POPCAT, with nearly all tokens (93.1%) immediately allocated to liquidity pools on Solana-based decentralized exchanges to facilitate initial trading and price discovery.[11] [38] The smart contract address is 7GCihgDB8fe6KNjn2MYtkzZcRjQy3t9GHdC8uHYmW2hr, deployed on Solana to leverage its high-throughput architecture and minimal transaction fees, which supported rapid, low-cost interactions aligned with the meme's interactive clicking theme.[39] Solana's selection emphasized its suitability for memecoin ecosystems, enabling micro-transactions without prohibitive costs and fostering grassroots participation through tools like liquidity provision where early users supplied SOL/USDC pairs to receive POPCAT tokens.[36] This setup mirrored the Popcat game's community-originated ethos, prioritizing decentralized, permissionless entry over centralized funding models.[37] No formal airdrops or token burns were implemented at inception, relying instead on organic liquidity bootstrapping.[38]Price Volatility and Market Milestones
POPCAT's price exhibited extreme volatility post-launch, surging from lows of approximately $0.005 in early 2024 to an all-time high of $1.80 on October 30, 2024, driven by speculative trading within the Solana ecosystem rather than any intrinsic utility.[40][41] This peak corresponded to heightened community engagement tied to viral meme revivals, including renewed interest in the original Popcat video, which correlated with trading volume spikes exceeding $100 million in 24-hour periods during rallies.[11] A key milestone occurred on September 25, 2024, when POPCAT first surpassed a $1 billion market capitalization, marking it as the inaugural cat-themed memecoin to reach this threshold across blockchains, fueled by Solana's broader network expansion and meme coin hype cycles.[42] Subsequent exchange listings, including on Coinbase, amplified liquidity but also triggered access disruptions during peak surges due to overwhelming demand.[43] From its October 2024 apex, the token underwent sharp corrections, plummeting over 90% to around $0.16 by October 2025 amid broader market downturns and waning speculative fervor, with interim drops such as 30% in September 2025 reflecting whale profit-taking and reduced hype.[44][45]| Milestone Date | Event | Price (USD) | Market Cap (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 25, 2024 | First $1B market cap (cat-themed pioneer) | ~$1.07 | $1B+ |
| October 30, 2024 | All-time high | $1.80 | ~$1.7B (inferred from supply) |
| October 2025 (ongoing) | Post-ATH correction low | ~$0.16 | ~$160M |