About
Cat Beards is a photo fad in which people pose with their cats, in such a manner so that the cat appears to be a beard.
Origin
The earliest example of a cat beard photo was uploaded to the tumblr Catasters on July 28, 2011[1], showing a man touching noses with his tabby cat (see below). The image was posted on the subreddit /r/pics two days later by user asternemeraldink[1], receiving nearly a thousand upvotes. The image spread to other humor blogs, such as Neatorama[3], Tastefully Offensive[4], Buzzfeed[5], and the Huffington Post[6].
Spread
After the original image was posted and spread in 2011, few new examples were posted. The fad began to gain some traction in 2012, with the creation of cat-beard.com[7], and when the Huffington Post UK posted an example on May 1, 2012[8]. The fad started to gain more notoriety, and has been posted about on humor blogs such as TheFW[9], Flotsam and Catsam[10], the Daily Dawdle[11], and theysmell.com[12]. The fad has spread across tumblr[13], with one post[14] on May 16, 2013, gaining over 50,000 notes in one day.
Notable Examples
External References
[1]Tumblr – Catasters – Cat Beard
[2]/r/pics – What the internet is for, #2
[4]Tastefully Offensive – Cat Beard
[5]Buzzfeed – Cat Moustache
[6]Huffington Post Comedy – The Cat Moustache
[7]Tumblr – Cat-Beard.com
[8]Huffington Post UK – Picture of the Day: May 1, 2012
[9]TheFW – 10 Awesome ‘Cat Beards’
[10]Flotsam and Catsam – Cat Beard- Human Hat?
[11]Daily Dawdle – Cat Beard Photos
[13]Tumblr – Posts tagged ‘cat beard’
[14]Tumblr – What do I do when I’m sick? I google “cat beards”