Je suis Pizza Rat

Claire found this on our internet.

Dominic Pettman considers Pizza Rat as meme functioning to humanize humans by humanizing animals and thereby animalizing humans.

Pizza Rat, a Totem of Our Time.

Note the sweet Second Life of Pizza Rat:

This generation is particularly obsessed with the virtual image of animals, as John Berger maintained, at the very moment real animals recede from our urban view. As such, the other main fauna of New York City — the roach, the pigeon, and the rat — become something closer to co-inhabitants than avatars of animality. Pizza Rat caught our attention, in its cheesy-greasy paws, because, as a culture, we need to humanize the animal, as a way of feeling more human ourselves and less estranged from the fellow creatures we betrayed by inventing abominations like the New York City subway system. In the same gesture, we animalize ourselves, by virtue of this recognition or empathy between species. (Pettman)

Here again I flash on the image of a yuppie baby crawling down those same stairs, dragging a slice as big as its head. Probably on its way to a toddler park meeting.

that is not a meme
valorization: how art works · That’s not a meme meme
livetweet image macro?! · Print the Meme · Je suis Pizza Rat

Bagel-Pigeon Is Giving Pizza Rat Serious Competition
Bagel-Pigeon is very low energy.