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Friday Feline Fun: A Ranking Of The Most Famous Internet Cats

Celebrity Internet cat Lil' Bub, who ranks No. 4 on the cat influencer list.
Dave Kotinsky
/
Getty Images
Celebrity Internet cat Lil' Bub, who ranks No. 4 on the cat influencer list.

For reasons I can't fully understand, the Internet loves its cats. Keyboard Cat and Grumpy Cat are household names, I Can Haz Cheezeburger is a digital empire, and my real-life cats are on a social networking site called Catster(this is not a joke).

So you've got to wonder how it took a cat food company this long to come up with this: the Friskies 50, a definitive list of cat influencers, powered by an algorithm that adjusts monthly depending on a cat's social media reach, engagement across various social platforms, and mentions in traditional news outlets.

Herewith, the top 20 cats, and you can see the full list for more:

To close this out, here's a classic from Maru, my personal favorite Internet cat (ranked No. 14 on the power list).

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR's Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network's coverage of both Koreas and Japan, and filed from a dozen countries across Asia.