The Internet has changed what is possible in our world. New technologies have been tested. The way we discover new tastemakers in film and music has been changed. The very limits of original creative content has been shattered and redefined.
And a guy rapping about his cat got 10 million views on YouTube.
Sparta, aka Mean Kitty, the fiercest feline in the vlogosphere, first hit the scene in September 2007. When Cory “Mr. Safety” Williams, already a prominent YouTube vidmaker, decided to kill two birds with one stone and simultaneously document his new kitten’s aggressive biting problem and his fab new pad in Sherman Oaks, he did so with a little rap called The Mean Kitty Song. The video was an instant and enormous hit, scoring more than 3.5 million views in its first two months alone. It is the number two top favorite of all time in YouTube’s Pets and Animals section – second only to the jawdropping survival-of-the-fittest juggernaut Battle at Kruger. (And it’s actually beaten BaK for “most discussed.” Chew on that, crocodiles!)
While YouTube consumers in general do seem to just enjoy a white guy rapping (see: Bo Burnham), The Mean Kitty Song has something special to offer, both in William’s clever rhymes and in Sparta’s sheer adorableness. It’s hard to say if it’s his ridiculously sweet face or the glee with which he attacks, but either way, never has violence been so cute.
Williams was a YouTube celeb and revenue sharer for his popular sketch comedy and hilarious music stylings, but he happily broke out more Sparta-centric videos, including a backstory vlog, webisodes, and a spectacular, epic, Choose Your Own Adventure-style undertaking in which viewers hunted through 64 video choices to search Williams’ apartment and “find Sparta.” But he also longed to get the focus at his channel, smpfilms, back on his own stuff, and so in June of 2008, Sparta got booted from smpfilms, and took up residence under his own shingle.
And what does Sparta get out of megafame? Immortalization in cartoon tributes, interviews of his own, and – from his proud and appreciative papa – the occasional salmon steak.
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