Cat memes have always been a staple of internet culture. Anyone who has been on social networks or Steam lately may have noticed a special specimen of this genus: the 3D model of a black and white cat. Maybe she turned. We at MeinMMO explain to you what’s behind it.
Note: The cover image is an icon image.
What is this meme? The black and white cat has been given many names online. According to Know Your Meme, the terms Maxwell the Cat and Spinning Cat have become established. This is a low poly model of a cat with paws tucked under the body in the best loaf of bread fashion.
Sometimes the cat rotates, accompanied by bagpipe music. The meme has already made its way through pretty much all social networks. If you want, you can enjoy 10 hours of Maxwell the Cat on YouTube – the video embedded here collected 2.5 million views in 2 months.
From Anarcho Cat to Steam
How did it all start? Maxwell first appeared on the file hosting site imgur. There, on November 20, 2017, user Voidhawk42 posted a photo of a rebellious cat curled up on a piece of paper with the inscription “Please don’t bend it”.
It appears to be a shipping label, which is visibly bent by the cat’s weight. The title of the work is: “Cat does not care for the laws of man” (via imgur).
How did the cat come to Steam? After the image had spread on social networks for years and the cat had been baptized by a variety of names, it finally found its way to the Steam gaming platform.
In the workshop of the cult sandbox Garry’s Mod, a user posted a low-poly model of the house tiger on October 12, 2022 under the name “dingus” (via Steam). Maxwell was quite popular there, garnering over 34,500 views (as of March 9, 2023).
A few days later, on October 21, 2022, another Steam user made an in-game wearable object out of the model. This was even better received than the original and has been viewed more than 180,000 times (via Steam).
With this post, the name Maxwell for the house tiger also caught on and it began its triumphal march through the Internet. Maxwell could now practically be carried around, as in this YouTube video:
Maxwell as far as the eye can see
What happened next? Maxwell spread rapidly across various networks. Numerous videos spread on YouTube, such as a “Half-Life 2” parody from October 25, 2022.
On November 4, Maxwell finally began to rotate. Twitter user blastycat posted a GIF of the spinning velvet paw, which was subsequently made a Final Fantasy-style “unlockable” item by another Twitter user:
Later, the spinning top animation was accompanied by music and videos with different songs made the rounds. Once again, the influence of the TikTok app, which is particularly popular with young people, is evident, because the short films with Maxwell collected millions of likes there.
Well-known companies, such as the TikTok account of the airline Emirates, also jumped on the trend. Overall, the hashtag #maxwell has more than a billion views on TikTok.
Finally, in late 2022 and early 2023, Maxwell even got his own games, like Maxwell Forever on the App Store and the “very positive” Drifting with Maxwell Cat: The Game on Steam, where the 3D model of Maxwell originated.
Who is Maxwell really? As Kotaku reports, Maxwell’s real name was Jess and he passed away in early 2020. Despite regular online activity, the owners said they were unaware of their cat’s distribution as a meme. However, it is nice that Jess was able to live on online in this way.
You can find more cat content on MeinMMO here, for example:
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