Sleeping ASCII Cat

About

Sleeping ASCII Cat is a text-based character that grew popular on Twitter in August of 2018. The meme shows an ASCII cat sleeping, then sitting upright as if it has just had a thought that jolted it awake, then going back to sleep.

Origin

The cat first appeared on Twitter on August 6th, 2018. While it is difficult to ascertain which tweet was the first to use the character, some popular examples posted that day include a post by @iamburtjarvis^[1] that gained over 140 retweets (shown below, left) and a post by @_coryrichardson^[2] that gained over 220 retweets (shown below, right).

Spread

In the following days, the character saw more use in meta variations. For example, a post by @dubstepfordads proved to be one of the most popular variations, gaining over 660 retweets and 5,800 likes (shown below, left). User @TheGirlsAndGays paired the character with Wake Me Up (shown below, right)

The character also proved popular with branded Twitter accounts. For example, some of the most popular tweets were posted by users like Sony, who posted about upcoming God of War (2018) DLC and gained over 210 retweets (shown below, left) and the account for Moe's Southwest Grill gained similar numbers tweeting about a "Free Queso Day" promotion (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References