Internet memes have been around since the ‘Dancing Baby’ and before, and tend to follow a typical cycle – they get started, get a hold with the tech-oriented folks of a certain community, then often grab a larger following. Occasionally they become fully mainstream, but that is fairly rare. One such curiosity is ‘Nyan Cat’, which got started in April of this year, and has only spread since then.
Here is a bit about it from Know Your Meme:
About
Nyan Cat, also known as Pop Tart Cat, is an 8-bit animation depicting a cat with the body of a cherry pop tart flying through outer space. While such absurd themes like flying kittens and pastry cats have been around for some time, the surreal humor behind this particular combination has captivated YouTubers and online art communities, spawning dozens of fan illustrations as well as receiving some mainstream coverage in April 2011. (Also see: Cat Bread and Speedy Cat)Origin
The Pop Tart Cat animation was posted on the daily comics site LOL-COMICS[1] run by illustrator prguitarman on April 2nd, 2011. Prior to the Pop Tart Cat, prguitarman had already gained a relatively large audience with a few other instances of comics circulating on the web. The GIF animation was also reblogged via Tumblr[2] on April 2nd, 2011, accumulating over 3,000 notes (likes & reblogs) in its first two weeks:On April 5th, 2011, YouTuber saraj00n posted a video titled Nyan Cat[3], using comic artist prguitarman’s Pop Tart Cat animation set to the well-known Japanese Vocaloid song Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya by Japanese artist Daniwell-P looping in the background, Although the song had been originally composed for Hatsune Miku to sing, The version used in the video was of the cover sung by the Utauloid Momo Momone. The video gained over one million views in its first two weeks:
It was the combination of the silly graphics and the insanely catchy yet annoying song that made this an infectious meme, and paved the way for it to spread.
While my favorite John Cusack movie remains ‘Better Off Dead’, the iconic BoomBox scene climax from ‘Say Anything’ is a truly classic film moment. The movie tells the tale of an unlikely love between an underachiever and a girl meant for greatness, and the scene is set to the song ‘In Your Eyes’ by Peter Gabriel. Here is the original:
And since there is an obvious musical slant to the scene, someone simply HAD to insert the Nyan cat song! What I particularly like is how they rework the balance to reflect being inside the house or outside, and how it works with character actions … oh, just watch it already!
Yes, I know that you all hate me now, and will curse your inability to get that song from your head, and that it has forever ruined a classic movie scene.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
