The taxonomy of internet animals is ever-changing. For years, we’ve attempted an agreement over basic terms, speaking the Esperanto of “good boys,” “doggos,” and “floofs.” We’ve settled, too, on behavioral classifications involving “boops” and “borks,” “bleps” and “sploots.” No less important is our own forecast from earlier this year, that tried to prepare us for a 2018 that would see the rise of a broader genre of internet pets: the “round boys.”
And yet now, even the most inclusive models have been upended. What we thought we knew about dogs and cats is now smashed into pieces by the beefy paws of the Buff Cat. Star of its very own Twitter account, the flexing feline has managed, in the space of a single day, to capture the imagination of an internet that may have supposed it’s already seen everything under the sun.
Behold:
The Buff Cat is impressive enough in still images, but it’s true majesty is best shown in a rare video of the burly buddy strolling toward a camera, haunches rippling beneath its fur in a display of barely-contained power.
While arguments could be made that muscle mass alone does not preclude the Buff Cat from being a round boy, its swaggering entry into the public consciousness is striking enough to suggest the creation of a new category entirely: the swole beasts.
There are others ready, pumping iron and waiting, to help bulk up the swole beast ranks. We have Roger the Kangaroo, the veiniest marsupial around, Frederick, the Fabio Horse, and the unthinkable nightmare of the Enormous Chicken on standby. Even another cat (though small enough that Buff Cat, in comparison, kicks metaphorical sand in its beanpole face) have earned their place in this hallowed pantheon. There’s enough material here, from across the animal kingdom, to get started. Hail Buff Cat, long (and strong) may he reign.
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