Shark Cat

Origin

Varisiri Methachittiphan, an MBA student who goes by Pookie, found a five month old Siamese and tabby mix kitten at the Castaic Animal Shelter in Castaic, California and took her home. The cat was named Nala. When Nala was around two, in 2012, Pookie started an Instagram account for her, which at the time was the sort of thing people did as a joke rather than as a business plan. The shark hat came later and was never a meme in the sense of a single viral post. It was a product. Nala's own account was already selling a crocheted grey shark hood by 13 May 2014, when it posted a photo of her wearing one under the flat caption "Nala crochet shark hat now in stock." The hat sat on her head like a hood, the fin stuck up, and the effect was a small annoyed predator dressed as a much larger one. Pookie kept shooting variations for years, and the household's other animals wore it too. On 30 April 2018 the account for Spencer, a dog adopted from the Hawaiian Humane Society who lived with the same family, posted him in the same hat.

Spread

Nala's account did not grow the way a single viral image grows. It compounded. By the time Guinness World Records verified her as the most followed cat on Instagram on 13 May 2020 she was at 4,361,519 followers, and Pookie and her partner Shannon Ellis were running a household of internet famous pets that CNN counted at seven in July 2019. Nala was signed by CAA. There was a book, a pet food line and a store. This was a business with an accountant, not a meme page. The shark hat photos were the part that escaped. They spread as reposts, as Pinterest pins, as generic cute animal filler on accounts that had no idea whose cat it was, and eventually as a stock image for the concept of a cat that is also a shark. Detached from the account name, the picture reads as anonymous, which is exactly the condition a picture has to reach before somebody puts it on a blockchain.

Legacy

Shark Cat is the cleanest case study Memepedia has of the gap between a meme and the person who owns the animal in it. The image was public, endlessly reposted and effectively ownerless in practice. The cat was not. Nala Cat is a registered brand with a talent agency behind it, and in March 2024 a Solana token used her face to reach a 390 million dollar market capitalisation without a licence, a contract or a phone call. What happened next is the unusual part. It did not end in a lawsuit and it did not end with the token dying. Pookie put out a press release, sent cease and desist notices, and asked for a ten percent stake, worth roughly 20 million dollars at the time. Negotiations collapsed on that number. Then holders started contacting her directly instead of through lawyers, the tone changed, and in early May 2024 the two sides signed a confidential licensing agreement. The token community published an apology on 2 May 2024, and Nala became the official face of a coin she had never agreed to be on. Almost nothing else in memecoin history lands there. The usual outcomes are a takedown, a silent rename, or a creator who gets nothing and says so publicly. Shark Cat is the one where the meme's owner ended up licensed, credited and paid, after the token had already peaked and given most of it back.

The Chain Trail

The OG token for this meme is Shark Cat ($SC) on Solana, launched 2024-03.

Key facts

• Nala is a Siamese and tabby mix rescued as a five month old kitten from the Castaic Animal Shelter in Castaic, California by Varisiri Methachittiphan, known online as Pookie.
• Her Instagram account was started in 2012, when the cat was around two years old.
• The crocheted shark hat was merchandise, not a single viral photograph. Nala's own account was selling it by 13 May 2014.
• Guinness World Records verified Nala as the most followed cat on Instagram on 13 May 2020, with 4,361,519 followers.
• Pookie and Shannon Ellis kept a household of internet famous pets that CNN put at seven in July 2019, including a dog named Spencer who was photographed in the same shark hat on 30 April 2018.
• The Shark Cat token launched on Solana in late March 2024 with no permission from the Nala Cat brand. Its first Raydium pool was created on 26 March 2024.
• It peaked around 390 million dollars of market capitalisation on 31 March 2024.
• Pookie issued a press release and sent cease and desist notices, and initially asked for a ten percent stake, worth roughly 20 million dollars at the time. The crypto lawyer Brandon Sample took the case pro bono.
• A confidential licensing agreement was reached in early May 2024. The token community published an apology on 2 May 2024 and Nala Cat became the official face of the coin.
• There is no Know Your Meme entry for Nala or the shark hat. The documentation trail is Instagram, Guinness World Records, mainstream press and the 2024 crypto coverage.