Bingus: The Hairless Sphynx Cat that Took the Internet by Storm
Bingus is a hairless Sphynx cat that became famous in March 2020, when a video of him being petted while staring at his owner surfaced on the internet. The video gained attention on Instagram and later in September, he appeared in a viral Reddit post, which led to online users referring to all Sphynxes as “Bingus.”
Below The Video of Bingus
The Origins of Bingus
The origins of Bingus are unclear, but it is believed that the video of him was first posted on the Chinese video-sharing app Douyin (also known as TikTok in China) by an account named Lelemaoshe. The earliest found instance of the video was on an Instagram post by user subarusocks on March 22nd, 2020. The video gained over 1,600 views in seven months. The next day, Instagram user big_chungles reposted the video and received more than 27,000 views in the same period.
The Spread of Bingus
Bingus’ popularity skyrocketed after September 8th, 2020, when Redditor haydongers posted an image of Bingus with the title “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. hi bingus…” to the subreddit /r/ambien. The post accumulated over 2,800 upvotes, 112 comments and numerous Reddit awards in a month, and screenshots of the post went viral elsewhere online shortly after.
On September 18th, Twitter user kurog3c tweeted a series of images under the caption “the four horsemen of the meowpocalypse,” which also included a photo of Big Floppa. The tweet received over 1,300 likes and 484 retweets in less than one month. A September 30th repost of the original Bingus video with the title “ahhhhh hi bingus” on the subreddit /r/aww gained over 17,500 upvotes, 318 comments and several Reddit awards in 22 days.
After haydongers’ post, many GIFs and GIF captions mentioning and showing Bingus were uploaded to Tenor in the following days and weeks. A September 18th Reddit post by user can_a_dude_a_taco on /r/bingus claims that the original creator of Bingus, who is alleged to be friends with haydongers, wished to remain anonymous.
In a similar fashion to Big Floppa and caracals, people began using “Bingus” as a generic nickname for Sphynx cats following the trend.
