Cat memes have always been an integral part of internet culture. If you’ve been active on social media or on Steam lately, you may have noticed a special specimen of this genus: the 3D model of a black-and-white cat. Perhaps it has been spinning. We at MeinMMO explain what lies behind it.
Note: The featured image is a symbolic image.
What is this meme? The black-and-white cat has received many names online. According to Know Your Meme, the names Maxwell the Cat and Spinning Cat have prevailed. It is the low-poly model of a cat, with its paws hidden beneath its body in a perfect bread loaf manner.
Sometimes the cat spins, accompanied by doodle music. The meme has already circulated through almost all social networks. If you want, you can enjoy 10 hours of Maxwell the Cat on YouTube – the embedded video has gathered 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. On November 20, 2017, the user Voidhawk42 posted a photo of a rebellious cat that made itself comfortable on a piece of paper with the inscription “Please do not fold”.
It seems to be a shipping label that is visibly bent due to the weight of the cat. The title of the work is: “Cat does not care for the laws of man” (via imgur).
How did the cat end up on Steam? After the image had spread across social networks for years and the cat had been given various names, it finally made its way to the gaming platform Steam.
In the workshop of the cult sandbox Garry’s Mod, a user posted a low-poly model of the house cat under the name “dingus” on October 12, 2022 (via Steam). There, Maxwell enjoyed quite a popularity and gathered over 34,500 views (as of March 9, 2023).
A few days later, on October 21, 2022, another Steam user made a portable object in the game out of the model. This was even better received than the original and was viewed more than 180,000 times (via Steam).
With this post, the name Maxwell also established itself for the house cat and began its triumphant march across the internet. Maxwell could now practically be carried around, as seen in this YouTube video:
Maxwell as far as the eye can see
What happened next? Maxwell spread rapidly across various networks. Numerous videos circulated on YouTube, such as a “Half-Life 2” parody from October 25, 2022.
On November 4, Maxwell finally began to spin. Twitter user blastycat posted a GIF of the rotating cat paw, which was then made by another Twitter user into a “playable” item in the style of Final Fantasy:
Later, the spinning animation was set to music and videos with different songs went viral. Once again, the influence of the app TikTok, which is especially popular among young people, became evident, as the short clips with Maxwell gathered millions of likes there.
Well-known companies, like the TikTok account of the Emirates airline, jumped on the trend. Overall, the #maxwell hashtag on TikTok has over a billion views.
Towards the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, Maxwell finally even got his own games, such as Maxwell Forever in the App Store and the “very positive” Drifting with Maxwell Cat: The Game on Steam, where the 3D model of Maxwell had its origin.
Who is Maxwell really? As Kotaku reports, Maxwell was actually named Jess and passed away in early 2020. The owners stated that despite regular online activity, they were unaware of the spread of their cat as a meme. However, it is nice that Jess could live on in this way online.
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