A wave of AI-generated social media videos showing a life-sized Cat in the Hat stalking people, lurking in driveways, and breaking into homes has gone viral, convincing some teenagers the character is real and prompting police forces to issue denials.
The footage, posted earlier this week, includes a clip of the giant cat walking up to a door, staring into the doorbell camera, and showing the homeowner a sheet of paper with her daughter’s name on it. The mother, who uploaded the footage to TikTok, asked: “Our camera captured this last night. What does it want with my daughter???” However, the incident did not actually happen.
How the trend spread
Images of the feline were first posted on Facebook earlier this month, with users claiming it was prowling Limerick, a city in western Ireland. More “sightings” were then reported in Glanmire, Cork; Cahir, Tipperary; Curracloe, Wexford, and Broadford Park in Dublin. Soon, hundreds of TikTok users were uploading clips or photos of the Cat in the Hat across the UK, even making accounts in his name.
Some users have shared lists of names he’s “coming for tonight” or warn that the cat is “coming” to where they live in only days. Others have spread fake news reports about the figure. A few “cat in the hat official” accounts have shared AI clips of themselves in police standoffs and being walked off in handcuffs.
Claims about Mike Myers
According to users, the person inside the costume is Mike Myers, who played the character in the 2003 The Cat in the Hat film. Fuelling those claims is a now-viral X post by the pop culture news account DiscussingFilm, saying the costume is being auctioned off. However, the costume hasn’t been sold yet – the auction is tomorrow.
Police respond
The trend forced the Irish police force, the Gardaí, to step in and stress that the Cat in the Hat isn’t standing in your garden. “Fortunately, we can rule out the issue, which is essentially an AI prompt that places the character into images/videos of familiar places,” the force said on Facebook on Thursday. They even shared an example: an AI-generated image of the cat with his trademark crooked red-and-white striped hat.
South Yorkshire Police also had to comment on the trend after users shared a fabricated statement attributed to them, saying the creepy cat had been seen in Meadowhall. People even approached officers on Saturday to discuss the videos. “To confirm, we have not had any reports of a cat in a hat in Meadowhall, or anywhere else in South Yorkshire for that matter,” the force told Metro. “We can also confirm no recent sightings of his associates Thing One and Thing Two.” They added: “The cat is not out of the hat on this one… we don’t have a new account or a new logo. Please don’t believe everything you read on social media.”
Teen reactions and expert view
Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of many posts, some teens are convinced the Cat in the Hat really is coming for them. Skye, 16, told the BBC: “I was having a sleepover, but everyone started watching Cat in the Hat videos. It was 3am. I wanted to go home. When I started walking down my friends’ driveway, I got totally freaked out that the Cat in the Hat was going to jump out. I had to call my mum to pick me up.”
Naomi Owusu, the co-founder of the digital publishing platform Tickaroo, isn’t surprised by the trend. She tells Metro: “AI-generated content is becoming harder to distinguish from reality. The obvious tells – strange hands, unnatural movement, distorted faces – are becoming less reliable as the technology improves. AI can also deliberately reproduce the imperfections that make something feel authentic, while a short clip shared without its original context gives people very little to work with.”
