Nyan Cat

The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso flying through space and leaving a rainbow trail behind.

[1] On April 2, 2011, the GIF animation of the cat was posted by 25-year-old Christopher Torres of Dallas, Texas, who uses the name "prguitarman", on his website LOL-Comics.

[8] The Japanese word nya (にゃ) (wikt:にゃん) is onomatopoeic, imitating the call of a cat (equivalent to English "meow").

[12] YouTube user "saraj00n" (whose real name is Sara June)[13] combined the cat animation with the "Momomomo" version of the song "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!

[15] In February 2021, it was reported that the GIF's original creator, Chris Torres, had created an updated version and sold it as a non-fungible token (NFT) for 300 ether, the equivalent of US$587,000 at the time of sale.

[29] Christopher Torres initially criticized the website www.nyan.cat, which originally featured a similar-looking cat with the pop tart replaced by a slice of toast,[30] and the same background music.

Torres immediately issued a statement on his website LOL-comics denying that he was the source of the complaint, and contacted Saraj00n and daniwell, who hold the copyright for the video and the song, in order to file a counter-complaint to YouTube.

[33] During the period that the video was unavailable for viewing, Torres received numerous abusive e-mails from people who wrongly believed that he had filed the DMCA complaint.