A Cat That Wouldn’t Fake It

Grumpy Cat was perfect for its moment—a meme that reflected something real about how exhausting it all was. Everything on the internet demanded your enthusiasm, your performance, your engagement, and here was this cat that absolutely refused. That refusal meant something.

Of course it became merchandise. Everything does. But there’s something almost honest about a plush toy of something fundamentally opposed to being touched or loved. You’re cuddling an object that embodies not wanting to be cuddled, which is maybe the only way a Grumpy Cat plush could ever actually work.

I never owned one. I don’t really need a physical reminder of indifference lying around my apartment. But I understood the appeal—the idea of something you could hold that didn’t pretend to be happy, that looked at you the same way you probably looked at whatever was making you need to hug a grumpy cat in the first place.

The cat herself—Tardar Sauce—probably couldn’t have cared less. That was always her whole thing. And maybe that’s what made her last, while most memes burn out in weeks. She was authentically unimpressed, and you can’t manufacture that.