With total views across all online platforms exceeding 2.2 billion, how did the Bugles Cat become a wildly popular AI creature on the internet?

Total views across all platforms exceed 2.2 billion, and a new cute star has joined the ranks of AI viral internet creatures — the Bugles Cat.

Unlike regular cats on the internet, the most distinctive feature of the Bugles Cat is the pair of triangular ears on its head that look exactly like the snack Bugles.

This character originally came from internet users' meme creation. Someone edited out the ears of a viral internet kitten, paired it with the caption "worn down by life", and thus a chubby, earless kitten was born.

That was not the end. Someone later added two Bugles to its head, and the originally earless kitten transformed into the "Bugles Cat".

Very soon, the Bugles Cat became a new generation of viral cat meme, active in the comment sections of major social media platforms: sometimes it shows off its cuteness with the two Bugles on its head, sometimes it turns into a master thief who steals a whole bag of Bugles.

If the story stopped here, it might just be another internet meme with a limited lifecycle. But the emergence of AI has given the Bugles Cat a far richer "cat life" than just a single emoji.

In AI-generated videos created by creators, it is sometimes a "rare species" in wildlife documentaries, living in groups in the wild and being observed and studied seriously by the camera.

Sometimes it wears work clothes and acts as a repairman, crawling under car chassis and into factory workshops, skillfully tightening screws and repairing machines.

According to statistics from the New Rank editorial team, up to now, the total number of views of videos related to #BuglesKitten on Douyin has exceeded 2.1 billion, the number of views on Xiaohongshu has exceeded 140 million, and the total number of views across all platforms has exceeded 2.2 billion.

From a kitten "worn down by life" to a viral AI creature with countless identities and stories, how exactly did the Bugles Cat take over the internet step by step?

Before the Bugles Cat, a number of viral internet creatures such as Shield-Dog and Nai Long also became viral one after another. As AI continuously lowers the threshold for image replication and story production, these constantly changing virtual creatures seem to be growing into a new content track.

With over 2.2 billion total views across platforms, the Bugles Cat takes over the internet

The prototype of the Bugles Cat is already an old acquaintance of the internet.

It comes from the viral internet kitten "Guapi's ID Sauce". Previously, this kitten once contributed the widely spread "owl cat" meme because of a photo that looks exactly like an owl.

Now, with a pair of Bugles on its head, it has once again become a top internet hit.

Among the first batch of creators who made content about the Bugles Cat, "Bingxing Dilei" is a representative one.

In July this year, he started to shoot the Bugles Cat in the style of a deadpan pseudo-documentary, with carefully crafted footage, voiceover and species setting, making people feel like they are watching an AI version of *Animal World*.

In his setting, the Bugles Cat mainly lives in plateau hilly areas above 3000 meters above sea level. The juvenile Bugles Cat does not have fully grown Bugles on its head, and it usually takes 3 to 5 years to develop its iconic triangular ears.

It even has a complete logic for mate selection: the more intact the Bugles are, the easier it is to win the favor of the opposite sex.

These deadpan nonsensical analyses have given the Bugles Cat its own species setting.

In *The Most Dangerous Day of the Bugles Cat*, this worldview is further supplemented.

In the video, the Bugles Cat encounters its natural enemy "Shield-Dog" in the wild, the group scatters and runs away. Some Bugles Cats lose their precious Bugles on the way to escape, and the dropped Bugles become the food of the Shield-Dog. Up to now, this video has gained more than 7.2 million views on Bilibili.

In the comment section, netizens began to actively supplement the setting and create memes. The Bugles Cat is no longer just a standalone meme, but gradually has its own story line.

After that, more and more creators joined the secondary creation army. Some people continue to treat the Bugles Cat as a real "rare animal", constantly supplementing its habits, living environment and group stories.

For example, "Kimi Planet" launched the "Bugles Cat Survival Diary" series, continuing the documentary-style narrative to show the Bugles Cat preying, migrating and living in the wild. At present, this series of videos has accumulated more than 1.1 million likes on Douyin.

But creators are obviously not satisfied with only letting the Bugles Cat stay in the wild. Another batch of videos directly pulls it into human society.

For example, the creator "Mi's Bugles" arranged a new career for it — a repairman. In his videos, the Bugles Cat shuttles through the streets and lanes, repairing water pumps and machines, just like an experienced veteran worker.

In one of the videos, the Bugles Cat helped a hot pot restaurant owner fix the light bulb, got a 50% discount on hot pot, and finally got a free order because of its excellent mukbang performance.

At present, this video has received more than 1.63 million likes and over 712,000 reposts on Douyin. Some netizens teased in the comment section: "Saying it's AI-generated negates all of Mi's efforts."

Not only that, some creators have even started to build a whole society of their own for the Bugles Cat.

The creator "I Am Super Smart" created a world called "Kimi Community", where the Bugles Cat is an ordinary resident.

One day after waking up, a Bugles Cat suddenly found its Bugles gone, so it pulled its neighbor to go find the community security guard Shield to solve the problem. Up to now, this video has received more than 528,000 likes on Douyin.

At this point, the gameplay of the Bugles Cat is becoming more and more like an expanding parallel universe.

Some people study how they survive in the wild, some let them come to the city to work, and some directly build communities for them, arrange neighbors and social relationships.

An emoji that was originally just "worn down by life" has step by step gained species settings, professional identities and a living world, and has become one of the most prominent characters in this round of viral AI internet creatures.

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The Bugles Cat is not the first AI viral creature that has taken over the internet.

In the past year, almost every once in a while, some internet creatures with simple shapes and abstract settings pop up on the internet.

The Shield-Dog, which frequently appears in joint content with the Bugles Cat, is one of the top hits among them.

Shield-Dog originally came from the English sentence "What the dog doing?", which was later misheard by netizens as "My Shield Dog". After secondary creation, it gradually evolved into what it looks like now: it has a Shiba Inu's head, a body similar to a toad, holding a knife in one hand and a shield in the other.

The absurd shape hits the funny bone of many netizens.

Up to now, the total views of the #MyShieldDog topic on Douyin have exceeded 8.15 billion. Some people use AI to generate Shield-Dog fighting and having adventures, some record "A Day in the Life of Shield-Dog" in a deadpan way, and even shoot Vlogs for it.

There are other similar internet creations such as "Gu Gu Ga Ga".

In February this year, Bilibili UP creator "Jian Tu Si Shun Gai" used AI to secondarily create the female administrator character from *Arknights: Endfield* into a chubby penguin when releasing his work.

Because of its magical shape and extremely high recognition, "Gu Gu Ga Ga" quickly became a new secondary creation material, and was made into various emojis and AI videos by netizens.

Looking further back, there are also the Meituan kangaroo that says "chubby and bold", the Nai Long that often grins widely, the "What's Up Cat" with a speechless face, as well as various popular characters such as Banana Cat and Grassland Cow.

To a certain extent, AI is constantly updating a new illustrated handbook of popular creatures for the internet.