Nyan Cat won a Webby Award in 2012 for 'Meme of the Year'. The original YouTube video has received 205 million views as of May 3, 2023. The Nyan Cat music video reached ninth place in Business Insider 's top ten viral videos of April 2011, with 7.2 million total views. In February 2021, it was reported that the GIF's original creator, Chris Torres, had created an updated version and sold it as a non-fungible token (NFT) for 300 ether, the equivalent of US$587,000 at the time of sale. In March 2019, ownership of the YouTube channel hosting the original Nyan Cat video was transferred to Means TV, a worker-owned video streaming service. Christopher Torres said: 'Originally, its name was Pop Tart Cat, and I will continue to call it so, but the Internet has reached a decision to name it Nyan Cat, and I'm happy with that choice, too.' The video rapidly became a success after being featured on websites including G4 and CollegeHumor. YouTube user 'saraj00n' (whose real name is Sara June) combined the cat animation with the 'Momomomo' version of the song 'Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!', and uploaded it to YouTube on April 5, 2011, three days after Torres had uploaded his animation, giving it the title 'Nyan Cat'. The voice source used to create the Momone Momo voice was a Japanese woman named Momoko Fujimoto.

On January 30, 2011, a user named 'Momomomo' uploaded a cover of 'Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!' featuring the UTAU voice Momone Momo. The song was later included in the rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F, released by Sega in August 2012. The Japanese word nya ( にゃ) is onomatopoeic, imitating the call of a cat (equivalent to English ' meow'). The song features the Vocaloid virtual singer Hatsune Miku. The original version of the song 'Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!' was uploaded by user 'daniwell' to the Japanese video site Niconico on July 25, 2010. Nyan Cat was based on a real cat: Torres' pet cat Marty, who died in November 2012 from feline infectious peritonitis. Torres explained in an interview where the idea for the animation came from: 'I was doing a donation drive for the Red Cross and in-between drawings in my Livestream video chat, two different people mentioned I should draw a 'Pop Tart' and a 'cat'.' In response, he created a hybrid image of a Pop-Tart and a cat, which was developed a few days later into the animated GIF. On April 2, 2011, the GIF animation of the cat was posted by 25-year-old Christopher Torres of Dallas, Texas, who uses the name 'prguitarman', on his website LOL-Comics. Origin Animated GIF Original Nyan Cat doodle The video ranked at number five on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso flying through space and leaving a rainbow trail behind. Nyan Cat is a YouTube video uploaded in April 2011, which became an internet meme.

Nyan cat cursor with rainbow trail