My favorite meme: Woman yelling at a cat
This post was written for this month's Bearblog Carnival. Thanks to Suliman for hosting this event!
What happens if a blonde woman and a white cat meet each other? They just start fighting for the spectacle in the Internet world. This is how it happened for Taylor Armstrong and Smudge the Cat.
A meme template depicting Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, along with Smudge the Cat. She gets angry while pointing her index finger to the white cat, who seems to dislike his plate of vegetables. (Source: Know Your Meme)
I love the sheer absurdity of this meme! At first, I thought that the second photo was part of the show's emotionally intense scene. But then, I felt like it just has similar lighting conditions and negative feelings as the first photo. I like how its source materials have been juxtaposed in a seamless manner.
Speaking of sources, this meme combines a screencap from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and a Tumblr image post by @deadbeforedeath (archive).
The left side is taken from "Malibu Beach Party from Hell", the 14th episode from the 2nd season of the American reality TV series. It involves Taylor Armstrong (who wears a black, short-sleeved dress) attending Brandi Glanville's beach house party, which is hosted by the latter's friend. Its main highlight is Taylor crashing out and confronting other housewives during the event. That moment was eventually stripped of its grim context just to be paired up with a Canadian cat on the Web.
The right side is based on a post from All Things Beautiful (a Tumblr blog by Smudge's furmom) on June 19, 2018. It depicts a white cat who is about to meow over his disgust for a plate of vegetables. Its caption says "He no like vegetals" followed by a no entry sign and a green salad emoji, suggesting that the cat does not want to eat whatever is offered on the table.
That meme was so viral in 2019 that Wikipedia (CW: Death and adult themes) wrote about it in detail. Even Taylor and Smudge acknowledged the meme's existence at the 12th Shorty Awards, where they won Meme of the Year and made a phone call skit about it.
Of course, I must never make fun of the original context behind Taylor Armstrong's on-screen breakdown. (That would be awful.) On the other hand, I get rather amused when that moment is taken out of context like most memes involving pop culture. At least, I can just look and smile at Taylor redirecting her strong emotions to that innocent cat.