Long live Longcat: OG internet meme passes away after 18 long years

Rest in power, Longcat, who lived a lengthy life as one of the stretchiest cats known on the internet. 

As one of the OG internet-famous felines in the early days of meme culture, Nobiko came into our lives through a simple photo uploaded on Japanese imageboard 2chan sometime between 2004 and 2005. 

Its Japanese owner posted the picture of the white cat in all of its extended glory before the image was transplanted to 4chan, during the days when the forum was still known as a seeding ground for memes (instead of the alt-right hellscape it is now).  

Nobiko’s impressive span sparked a whole series of photoshopped memes and built a mythology as it came to be known forevermore as Longcat. It destroyed cities, it spanned Twitter threads, it stretched across computer monitors and rose far into the cosmos. 

The prevalent fictional mythos around Longcat is that it would one day clash with its nemesis Tacgnol, another lengthy cat but black in colour. The final battle would trigger Catnarok, as the legend goes. 

Alas, Catnarok would not come to be. Hong Kong news portal Stand News reported that Nobiko had been in poor health and was taken to hospital on Sept 20 before passing away soon after. Its owner tweeted that Nobiko was about 18-and-a-half years old — a lengthy lifespan for a cat — before she passed. 

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While Longcat is indeed long, CNET reported that it stood at 65 centimetres from head to toe. 

On social media, folks have been paying tribute to Longcat, which now joins other dearly departed LOLcats Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub across the rainbow bridge. Long live Longcat. 

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ilyas@asiaone.com