Lune

The Bingus meme began in late 2020 with a single photograph of a Sphynx kitten posted to a small subreddit, with the caption simply reading Bingus, a nonsense word that subsequent meme commentary has traced to the Mandela Effect-adjacent linguistic-play subculture on r/MandelaEffect and to similar word-play accounts on Tumblr from earlier in the year. The image showed the kitten in characteristic Sphynx morphology: hairless pink-wrinkled skin, oversized triangular ears, bulging eyes set wide on the face, and the lean angular build of the breed. The dedicated r/Bingus subreddit launched within weeks of the original post, and by mid-2021 had accumulated approximately 200,000 subscribers; the subreddit collected variations, edits, reaction crops, and original Sphynx photography submitted by users with their own hairless cats. The meme spread to TikTok through early 2021 with creators using the Bingus tag as a punchline marker for any hairless or unusual-looking cat, and the word entered broader internet slang as a generic affectionate term for a Sphynx or for any visibly weird-looking small animal. The original kitten's real name and owner stayed largely uncredited across the meme cycle, a detail that meme-culture commentary in Vox, the Verge, and Know Your Meme has identified as central to the meme's longevity: Bingus became a category rather than a single specific cat, allowing the framing to attach to an effectively unlimited supply of new Sphynx photography. By 2022 the word had appeared on unofficial merchandise (T-shirts, enamel pins, plush toys), in Spotify song titles produced by independent bedroom artists, and in a long catalogue of Discord-server emoji sets. The Sphynx breed itself, originally developed from a 1966 Toronto mutation, has seen sustained adoption growth across the early 2020s that breeders have partially attributed to Bingus and to the broader online visibility of hairless cats. Veterinary commentary accompanying the meme cycle has noted that Sphynx cats require specific skin-care routines, additional warmth, and routine bathing because of the absence of fur, which has prompted some welfare advocates to caution against impulse acquisitions driven by meme exposure.