Keyboard Cat

The "Keyboard Cat" meme represents an influential video-based internet phenomena, transforming a simple home video into a cultural touchstone for commenting on failure and embarrassment online. The meme's journey from obscure personal footage to viral sensation spans decades and illustrates the unpredictable nature of internet fame.

The original video footage was created in 1984 by Spokane, Washington-based performance artist Charlie Schmidt during a winter day when he was experiencing boredom and financial difficulties. Schmidt recorded his orange tabby cat Fatso wearing an infant's blue t-shirt and appearing to play an upbeat rhythm on an Ensoniq Mirage sampling keyboard (Schmidt, personal interview, as cited in Love Meow, 2016). The illusion was created through Schmidt's off-camera manipulation of Fatso's paws, with the shirt serving to conceal his hands. Schmidt composed the catchy musical track himself "in about 2 minutes to have a track for fatty to play out" (Love Meow, 2016).

The video remained dormant for over two decades until Schmidt digitized the VHS footage and uploaded it to YouTube on June 7, 2007, under the modest title "charlie schmidt's 'cool cat'" (Know Your Meme, 2009). The video initially garnered little attention, sitting in relative obscurity for nearly two years with minimal viewership.

The transformation from personal video to internet meme occurred on February 2, 2009, when Brad O'Farrell, syndication manager for the video website My Damn Channel, created the first "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat" video (Wikipedia Contributors, 2024). O'Farrell had obtained Schmidt's permission to use the footage and appended it to a video of a man falling backwards down an escalator. The idea of "playing someone off" came from the trope of "giving someone the hook" for a bad performance, a technique from Vaudeville shows (Know Your Meme, 2009). This concept resonated immediately with internet users, who began creating their own mashup videos featuring Keyboard Cat "playing off" various epic fails and embarrassing moments.

The meme's rapid proliferation was facilitated by O'Farrell's connections within YouTube, which helped the video gain featured placement on the platform's front page (Wikipedia Contributors, 2024). This exposure triggered an avalanche of user-generated content, with creators appending Schmidt's footage to existing fail videos across multiple platforms. The format became so popular that Schmidt created PlayHimOffKeyboardCat.com on April 6, 2009, to serve as a central hub for Keyboard Cat-related content (Know Your Meme, 2009).

Mainstream media recognition arrived quickly, with BuzzFeed and Urlesque featuring the video on April 10, 2009, marking the first time it was explicitly called a "meme" (Know Your Meme, 2009). The phenomenon reached peak cultural penetration when it was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on May 18, 2009, during a segment with Stephen Colbert. The meme's influence extended to award shows, with Andy Samberg suggesting at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards that overly long acceptance speeches would be "played off" by Keyboard Cat.

The enduring appeal of Keyboard Cat lies in its perfect synthesis of several cultural elements: the universal recognition of cats as internet content, the nostalgic charm of 1980s aesthetics, and the satisfying ritual of dismissing failure through musical intervention. The meme established a template for countless subsequent internet phenomena and demonstrated how pre-digital content could find new life and meaning in online contexts.