A closer look

The hypnotic eight-bit pop-tart feline that left a rainbow trail across millions of screens wasn't just a fever dream of a random artist. The creator explicitly modeled the pixelated character after his own real-life pet, a Russian Blue cat named Marty. While Marty sadly couldn't fly through space or produce a maddening synth-pop soundtrack, his likeness generated one of the most inexplicably lucrative phenomena in digital history.