There’s always a lot going on in death metal songs: growling, thrashing, pounding on a billion different instruments per second. But one fan of the genre knew that if it hoped to infiltrate the Internet market, it was still missing one key element: cats.
THR1LLA115 and his pudgy kitty Bailey joined forces in 2010 to bring the YouTube community “Death Metal Fat Cat.” As music from death metal staples like Oceano and Abiotic plays in the background, THR1LLA115 wildly operates Bailey’s two front paws to simulate each song’s insane drumming.
The funniest part of the Death Metal Fat Cat videos has to be Bailey’s obvious disconnect from what is going on. Throughout each song, no matter how violent, he wears a bored look on his adorable face, punctuating it with the occasional yawn. In some videos, it looks like he is fast asleep.
So far, Death Metal Fat Cat’s 2012 video for Thy Art Is Murder’s “Whore to a Chainsaw” has earned the duo its highest ratings, with over 2.5 million views (thanks, in part, to a March 6 post on Reddit). Their other videos have all gotten over 70,000 views each and Death Metal Fat Cat even has his own Facebook page and line of merchandise.
While most viewers have reacted positively to Death Metal Fat Cat’s covers—especially his tendency to “give zero fucks”—some users have questioned THR1LLA115’s handling of Bailey in each song.
“I am abusing a cat, and now making a t shirt out of it, yay,” commented JaxxDaemon on YouTube.
“If i was that cat, i would have scratched and clawed to the point surgery couldn’t fix it,” added Altair Ibn La Ahad.
However, as YouTube user Unnamed Pony pointed out, Bailey was apparently free to leave whenever he wanted.
“Can’t stand people who don’t know about cats, if somebody even touches a cat they start screaming abuse and think you’ll hurt it, if that cat was anything more than mildly annoyed if it even was then he would have ran away,” he wrote.
Or, as user brdsteed summed it up, “allow me to offer an alternate translation for kitty: “i’m a cat and i don’t give a fuck about anything.”
We can only wonder if Death Metal Fat Cat will ultimately want to move on to other musical genres. Paws crossed for a softer Phil Collins phase next.
Screengrab via THR1LLA115/YouTube