Meme Cat of the Day: OIIA Cat

So, you know that grey, chunky spinning cat chanting what sounds like “OIIA OIIA” (or “oo ee ah eh ah”) that’s infected every corner of TikTok and YouTube Shorts?

The wild part is: it all started with a completely ordinary rescue cat.

Her name is Ethel.

She wasn’t bred in a lab, she’s not a special “OIIA species,” and there’s no secret CGI studio behind her. Ethel is a real, stocky grey house cat who was adopted from a shelter and lived a pretty normal life before the internet got its hands on her image. She has short legs, a compact little body, and that fixed, slightly alarmed expression that makes her look like she just realized she’s on camera for the first time.

The first step toward OIIA-dom happened years before the spinning edits. Back in 2019, Ethel’s owner posted a simple photo of her standing upright in the Facebook group “Cats On Catnip.” No filters, no motion, just Ethel: stubby, serious, and unintentionally hilarious. Meme pages (especially in Latin America) grabbed the image and started using it with different captions, including a phrase that stuck loosely as “Ai Dise Gratis.” Ethel became one of those low-key reaction cats: not yet iconic, but constantly floating around in comment sections and meme pages.

The real turning point was when someone turned that static Ethel into a spinning 3D-style model.

Suddenly, instead of a cat just standing there, you had this little grey unit rotating in place like a celestial body of confusion. The loop is deceptively simple: Ethel spins perfectly, no wobble, no camera shake, just a clean, endless orbit. It’s hypnotic in that “I have no idea why I’m still watching this” way. Once the spin existed, it was only a matter of time before someone paired it with the sound that would define the meme.

Enter the “OIIA” chant.

On Chinese platforms like Bilibili, creators started syncing the spinning Ethel with a chopped, robotic vocal sample that sounded like “oo ee ah eh ah” (people write it as OIIA, OIIAOIIA, etc.).

It’s just nonsense syllables, but when they’re punched into a sharp rhythm over a rotating cat, it hits that perfect mix of dumb and genius. That combo—spinning Ethel + OIIA chant—became the core template. From there, it hopped to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and pretty much every short-form platform.

Once it landed in the broader meme ecosystem, things escalated fast.

People started speeding up the spin, using neon colors, glitch effects, and layering Ethel over game soundtracks, especially tracks inspired by rhythm games like A Dance of Fire and Ice. Some edits turned the OIIA pattern into a full music track, mapping each “syllable” to beats so the cat feels like a visual metronome of chaos.

By late 2024–2025, the OIIA cat had joined the pantheon of “you see this once and your brain is permanently altered” meme animals, appearing in compilations next to other legendary meme cats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbaQ5sYYqHE

Of course, once a meme reaches that level, it stops belonging to any one creator. Brands use it to look “online,” small creators remix it into ironic art, and regular users use it as shorthand for “my brain is fried but I’m vibing.”

The OIIA cat basically became a symbol of overstimulating internet humor: simple, loud, repetitive, and weirdly comforting.

Meanwhile, Ethel herself is just…a cat.

An awesome cat.

Behind the spinning, chanting, remixed versions is a real rescue cat who lives a normal domestic life. The “sad backstory” versions you might have seen usually focus on the fact she came from a shelter and had a rougher start, but ultimately she ended up in a safe home. The meme doesn’t change that; it just takes one funny photo and stretches it into an infinite loop that the entire internet shares like an inside joke.

If you want a good “starter” OIIA experience, here you go:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IxX_QHay02M

TL;DR: 

- OIIA cat = Ethel, a real rescue cat. 

- Originated as a funny standing photo in a Facebook cat group. 

- Got turned into a spinning 3D-style loop. 

- Synced with a chopped “OIIA” vocal sample on Chinese platforms. 

- Exploded into a global meme through TikTok/Shorts remixes. 

- Ethel herself is just living her regular cat life while her digital twin spins forever