![]() It was opulent but family friendly, corporate but viral, like a chicken strip on fleek but in real life. I don’t know how best to sum up this whole experience. Just like that, the fever dream was over. ![]() And then I was out the door and back on Congress. From there I was ushered to a printer to pick up my photo (it was not beautiful) and then into another photo booth where I could have a picture taken of me with my picture (it was very meta). Everyone in line got to take a picture with the sleepy internet sensation, and when my turn came, the camera operator ran through her script-she told me to smile big, which I politely declined in favor of an incredulous smirk. Grumpy Cat is larger than life but smaller in person. Is there a beef between her and Grumpy Cat? And if there is, can it be made into a flavor of wet food?įinally, after navigating the serpentine line, there she was, napping in her Friskies bed surrounded by handlers and camera equipment. Notably absent from the cat parade was Lil Bub. Technically a pop-up art gallery, the Haus of Bacon instead replaced the beloved coffeenalia with portraits of the cats in attendance-GC, Waffles, Nala, Sam Has Eyebrows, and Oskar the Blind Cat and Klaus- made entirely out of bacon, cat food, and Friskies packaging. Even the Medici logo that had adorned the walls was painted over. Where once stood retail coffee bags and pastries now stood pyramids of Friskies Tasty Treasures’ new bacon-flavored cat food, presumably the impetus behind the ongoing feline foofaraw. The espresso machines, the grinders, the manual brewers were all gone. Inside, only Ozymandian vestiges of one of Austin’s most beautiful cafes remained. Waiver signed, cat videos watched, pen vaped, and then finally-it was time to meet Grumpy Cat. A plane flew overhead towing a massive picture of Grumpy Cat the zeitgeist was upon us. The cat? Nonplussed.Ī bi-modally aged line of youngsters on the verge of tears and adults a little too excited for their age queued out the door and down Congress Avenue, all anxiously awaiting a glimpse of that steely, fluffy, blue-eyed malcontent. We met Grumpy Cat and her legion of fans at South By Southwest. The atmosphere was electric. Whereas most lamestream media outlets would report from the sterile formality of Friday’s Grumpy Cat media day, we at Sprudge opted to get grimy with the common people during the Saturday public event. The whole thing was so viral I just about died. It came as part of the Friskies Haus of Bacon (the Internet’s favorite food group), the cat food brand’s SXSW opening weekend pop-up combining cats and bacon in an attempt to #breaktheinternet. The body incarnate of the blips and boops manifested itself in the form of Grumpy Cat-the most famous iteration of the most popular thing in the URLz-and five of her internet feline friends taking over the Congress Avenue location of Caffé Medici. The Internet developed sentience over the past weekend, becoming a living, breathing thing, and swallowed whole a downtown Austin coffee shop. ![]()
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