The Smurf Cat meme spread on TikTok in 2023, built around an image of a cat edited to look blue and wearing a Smurf-style hat. Short videos paired that image with a dreamy electronic song, and the character quickly became shorthand for surreal, wholesome meme humour online. Low quality versions like this one followed as creators deliberately degraded the audio, turning a clean viral sound into an ironic shitpost staple. Its popularity has lasted because the image and melody are instantly recognisable, even when the sound is muffled and distorted.