Death of a grumpy cat

Our baby girl is no more. We remember the day we first encountered the tiny feline with a medical condition that gave her a permanently grumpy expression. It was love at first ‘site’ — Reddit. Her steely eyes and brooding countenance were unapologetically grumpy, everyone on the social media platform agreed.

Grumpy Cat gave the world an icon for those days when your colleague at work droned on about the best holiday he’d had while you were filling in for him. For the time when you woke up in the morning, and wished you could snooze for the next 10 hours. Or when your wallet was as hollow as the empty space in your stomach.

The internet is full of cat images — cute cats, naughty cats, wicked cats, evil cats — but Grumpy Cat had a place all her own. She catapulted — if you’d pardon the pun — to fame in 2012. She had her own Twitter and Facebook pages. The world’s grumpiest cat, said her official Twitter page. Social media was also where her owner Tabatha Bundesen of Arizona, US, announced that she was no more. She died on May 14 of complications arising out of a urinary tract infection.

She was seven.

We will miss her. For the first time ever, we grumps had an actual spokesperson. She even stood for the “resting bitch face” — described by Urban Dictionary, the online slang lexicon, as the facial expression of someone who perpetually looks mean, but may not actually be so. Grumpy told the world that frowny people were often misunderstood; just because they were scowling didn’t really mean they were plotting murder all the time. Not all the time.

Popular Grumpy Cat memes

In grumpiness, the Christmas Grinch comes a close second perhaps, but there is a difference between the two. The Grinch is made out to be a villain, whereas Grumpy Cat is a folk hero of the millennials. Named Tardar Sauce (a reference to the fish-and-chips dip), she acquired her stage name after Bundesen’s brother introduced her to the world with the three magic words: “Meet Grumpy Cat!” A subsequent video on YouTube showed her sweetly grumpy face that represented a feeling and expression so universal that millions from across the world could relate to it.

She went on to become a celebrity, with endorsements, appearances and a net worth of £64 million. Grumpy was even on the cover of New York Magazine , and her book Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book was number seven on the bestsellers’ list of The New York Times . Grumpy Cat’s Instagram has 2.7 million followers. She appeared on television, starred in a Christmas film and was showcased in the Madame Tussauds museum in San Francisco.

She inspired thousands of memes and even had her own emoji — expressing a wide range of emotions from feeling awful to being mildly amused or wanting someone to shut up and go away.

The memes said everything that a grumpy face could elicit. “I had fun once: It was awful,” said one. “A little bird told me it was spring: I ate him,” said another. “I like onions: They make people cry,” a third went.

There is no denying that felines have been enjoying their moment in the virtual sunshine of the world wide web, as a kitty subculture flourishes. There have been other cat sensations on the Net — such as Hello Kitty, a fictional cartoon character — and the world is full of cat cafes and cat videos.

But Grumpy cat was one of a kind. According to Bundesen, her expression came from feline dwarfism and an underbite. But the Internet user loved it. The year she rose to fame, she edged out Gangnam Style — the Korean dance phenomenon — and the Harlem Shake — where you had millions of people dancing to the song — to become the face behind the Meme of the Year in 2013’s Webby Awards.

What led to her fan following? Perhaps it was the realisation that there was nothing much to smile about. World leaders deny climate change as people reel under droughts, floods and snowstorms. Monday returns after seven days. The four-day work week is a myth. Housing is more expensive, water is running out and chocolate eclairs are fattening. Still smiling?

But, along with all the bad news, Grumpy Cat also reminded us that there was a smile that grumpiness could evoke. And that is why, though she is no more with us, her memory lives on in our minds and our memes. She spoke to us through the darkest of times, and made the world a little less lonely, and a little more accepting, one frown at a time.

Goodbye, kindly grump.

Payel Majumdar Upreti

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