French Cat VS

About

French Cat VS is a viral short of a cat petted in a way that they make purr sounds similar to the French hon hon hon. Gaining traction as a famous short both on TikTok and YouTube, the cat was paired with various other cats using regional stereotypes in versus videos. The sound effect was widely used in parodies as well.

Origin

On January 28th 2024, TikToker wiwigato^[1] uploaded a short of a cat being petted in such a way that their purrs sound similar to stereotypal French. It was captioned "He is French" with pictures of a baguette and a French flag and featured stereotypical accordion as background music (later YouTube upload shown below). In the next 5 months, it has accumulated to over 64 million views and 10 million likes.

While several other uploads were made after January 28th of the video without music or with different captions, the earliest one that predates wiwigato's parody remains, for now, unknown.

Spread

French Cat VS

A popular parody was to pair this cat with other cats representing various regional stereotypes (examples shown below).

As a sound effect

The purring sound itself was also reused in remixes and parodies (examples below)

External References

^[1] TikTok – He is French