What Does the Crying Cat Thumbs Up Meme Mean?

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Everything you need to know about this viral meme
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Have you seen the picture of a sad kitty giving a thumbs-up on social media and wondered what it meant? This popular reaction meme is Crying Cat Thumbs Up or Thumbs Up Crying Cat. It means that the person using it is sadly resigned to the situation they find themselves in. Read on to find out more about where this meme came from and how to use it in texts or on social media.

Crying Cat Thumbs Up Meme Meaning

The Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme features a cat with large, tear-filled eyes making a thumbs-up sign. In most cases, it means the user is expressing sadness or hurt feelings but is resigned to or accepting of the situation.

Section 1 of 4:

What is the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme?

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  1. The Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme has been photoshopped to make the cat look like it’s crying and holding up its thumb. It suggests that the person sending or posting it has been hurt but is smiling through the pain. It may also mean that they're trying to hide your emotions, but just can’t quite manage it.
    • It can also mean that someone's feeling a blend of sadness and duty, as in, “Man, this sucks. Let’s just get it over with.” [1]
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Section 2 of 4:

How to Use the Crying Cat Thumbs Up Meme

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  1. One of the most popular uses is to react to criticism with the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme. It lets the person criticizing you know that you’re working as hard as you can, and it hurts that they don’t recognize that. A few examples of how to use it to respond to such criticism are:
    • Use it when a random player on your Fortnite team says, “You’re trash at this, noob,” but you just bought the game and are trying your best to figure things out.
    • Use it when someone says, “Your English is so bad! Where did you learn it?” but you’re Norwegian and visiting the United States from Norway, just trying your best to communicate.
    • Use it to describe the feeling Rick Astley has when everybody says, “Haha! You got Rick Rolled!” but he was just trying his best to make a good song.
  2. Sometimes people ask you to do something, and you don’t want to, but feel obligated to do it anyway. The Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme is the perfect response. Here are a few examples of how to use it:
    • Use it when your boss asks you to stay late at the end of your 8-hour shift, and you’re exhausted, but you need the money.
    • Use it when your best friend in the world, who you’d do anything for, asks you if you can help them carry a piano up to their 6th-floor apartment.
    • Use it when your dad, who has worked hard his entire life to make sure you were taken care of, asks you to mow the lawn because his back hurts.
  3. Make a funny point about how a statement might come across as a little hurtful with the help of the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme. Examples of statements and captions for the reaction meme:
    • Teacher: “If you don’t study, you’ll end up working as a garbage man.”
      Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme with the caption: The Garbage man, taking away trash so it doesn’t pile up in the neighborhood.
    • People in 2020: “Bats are the worst! They gave us all Covid and ruined our lives!”
      Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme with the caption: Bats eating mosquitos and just wanting to be left alone.
    • Me: “This computer is worthless.”
      Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme with the caption: My PC after giving me 6 years of faithful service.
  4. The Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme can help you express the complex mix of emotions you feel when you’ve worked hard and used your last ounce of physical and mental energy to finish a difficult task. Here are a few examples:
    • Use it when you finally beat the boss level after replaying it for hours.
    • Use it to show how it feels to cross the finish line of a 5K you forgot you signed up for and didn’t prepare for.
    • Use it when you finally turn in an assignment after staying up all night to finish it.
  5. 5
    React to a disappointment you just have to get over. Sometimes, when you’re facing a disappointment, the only thing you can do is try to get over it. Here are a few ways to use the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme to show how that feels:
    • Use it when a random stranger says it’s time to go after you’ve played online together for 7 hours straight.
    • Use it to show how it feels to watch your boyfriend tag other people in memes.
    • Use it to express your emotions after the first bite of your dinner burns your mouth, so you can’t taste anything else.
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Section 3 of 4:

Where did the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme come from?

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  1. A user uploaded the image of a cat giving a thumbs up to the JabGood servers. This first version of the meme was only giving a thumbs-up and didn’t have the sad eyes of the most famous version. [2]
    • Cat memes are extremely popular on the internet, with a long history of becoming viral memes like Grumpy Cat and Lil’ Bub . [3]
  2. The Reddit version of the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme used the same image as the original but with the crying eyes of the preexisting Sad Cat meme photoshopped on it. The user gave the crying cat image the caption, “Sad thumbs up.” [4]
    • The image got over 1,700 Reddit Karma points and a 99% upvote rate in 1 year.
  3. While the image was originally uploaded to Reddit nearly 3 years earlier, it didn’t become popular until 2020. A Twitter user named @SaoryEmanoelle replied to a post by @RespectfulMemes with the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme.
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Section 4 of 4:

Related Cat Memes

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  1. The Serious Cat meme features an image of a white cat with an unusually serious expression on his face accompanied by the caption, “I are serious cat. This is serious thread.” The image was posted on a South Korean web community called Humor University in early 2005. Serious Cat made its way to the 4chan message board in 2006, where it was introduced to a Western audience and quickly went viral. [5]
    • Users shared Serious Cat to express humorous levels of seriousness.
    • Serious Cat was originally known as Jae-Young Cat due to the perceived resemblance to South Korean DJ/rapper Jae Young.
  2. The Crying Cat meme consisted of images of cats that have had glassy, teary eyes photoshopped on to make them look like they’re crying. The earliest known version of this meme appeared in June of 2014 and was a photoshopped version of the earlier Serious Cat meme. It was humorously used on social media to express over-the-top sadness. [6]
    • Other names for this meme are Sad Cat and Schmuserkadser.
  3. The Thumbs Up Cat is a series of photoshopped cat images that feature different cats giving a thumbs up . While the Crying Cat Thumbs Up meme is a version of the Thumbs Up Cat, the Thumbs Up Cat has been traced back to a 2011 YouTube video of a cat named Jimmy giving their owner a thumb’s up. [7] It’s generally used as a humorous way to show agreement.
    • There were several versions of the Cat Thumbs Up meme, but the Crying Cat Thumbs Up was the most viral of them all.
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      References

      1. ↑ https://en.meming.world/wiki/Thumbs_Up_Crying_Cat
      2. ↑ https://en.meming.world/wiki/Thumbs_Up_Crying_Cat
      3. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/33848745
      4. ↑ https://en.meming.world/wiki/Thumbs_Up_Crying_Cat
      5. ↑ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/serious-cat/
      6. ↑ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/crying-cat
      7. ↑ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thumbs-up-cat

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