However, internet fame doesn’t stay for long. Most viral sensations disappear within a few days – or are found out to be a Milkshake Duck. Grumpy Cat’s continued fame wasn’t an accident. Her owners got her an agent. She was represented by Ben Lashes, a “meme manager” who has made his career in managing the schedules and media appearances of other internet famous animals, such as Keyboard Cat (arguably, the original Grumpy Cat).
When the first Reddit post blew up, her owners weren’t certain of how to proceed – they had spoken to t-shirt companies about making apparel, and an article about Grumpy Cat had appeared in national news. So Lashes stepped in, sensing the advertising, merchandising and marketing potential – in much the same way as he had catapulted Keyboard Cat to fame. As a New York Magazine cover story in 2013 details, he reached out to the Bundesens through Youtube, and offered to help them navigate the business aspects they were less familiar with.
Soon, Grumpy Cat was raking in big bucks – appearing in commercials for Honey Nut Cheerios with that trademark scowl, winning awards shows for the best internet memes, and even being a spokescat for Friskies, a popular American cat food brand. When a Grumpy Cat book, filled with aphorisms and activities that you could do with your family, came out, less than a year after the first Reddit post, it made The New York Times bestseller list, and stayed at number seven for a longer period than anyone expected. A follow up was similarly successful.
The latest figures put her value at $99,500,000 (£78,000,000) although these were disputed by the Bundesens but never corrected. The branding value of Grumpy Cat is so significant that Tabatha Bundesen won $710,000 in a copyright infringement lawsuit against a coffee chain which used Grumpy Cat’s imagery on their branding in 2018. Her branding was so strong that a beverages company soon approached Grumpy Cat Limited to ask about using her face to sell their products, such as a Grumpuccino, which would be in grocery stores worldwide. A year later, she was the star of a Lifetime Christmas film, voiced by Aubrey Plaza, which was billed as a cross between Home Alone and Die Hard, with a cat thrown in – over 1.8 million people tuned in when it first aired.
Grumpy Cat’s throne as the most iconic cat on the internet was arguably never in question, although many other cats that have come since have achieved similar levels of fame. Venus the Two Face cat, a shorthaired kitten with two different kinds of fur on his face, has 1.8m followers (and posted a tribute today to Grumpy Cat). Lil Bub, a shorthaired fluff who always has a little bit of his tongue sticking out, has 2.1m followers, although his face isn’t as eminently meme-able. Other cats with interesting features – such as Atchoum the Cat, who looks like a grumpy scientist – may have Grumpy Cat to thank for their ascension to internet fame.
That sourpuss face didn’t tell the whole story either – despite Grumpy Cat’s reputation, her owners often clarified that she was actually a very docile cat that loved meeting people (particularly as the number of meet-and-greets ballooned). Although she may not have been quite so ubiquitous on the internet in recent years, her celebrity never quite faded away. She was on a cover of Reader’s Digest as one of the internet’s funniest stars last year, and orders were still rolling in for Grumpy Cat plushes and squishy pillows, all of which were Official Grumpy Cat merchandise.
Grumpy Cat’s rise could be partially due to the meme-ability of her face, the internet’s perpetual obsession with cats and how she soon became a shorthand for every level of disgruntlement. But she was also instantly recognisable, and few other felines will come close to her level of instant fame. Grumpy Cat lives on.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
