Anatomy of a meme ( and how rats are indeed our babies )

This is a pretty simple design, inspired by an old rat meme, floating around the internet that many of you will undoubtedly have seen before. With a slight twist, it became relatable to an uncanny extent, wouldn’t you agree? I needed a design to reference THE RAT RACE which most of us are familiar with. Unfortunately.

Initially, I offered it as a DIY print to save costs for both you and me, but then a realization came that it made an even better t-shirt and a mug! 

Available here, by the way 😉

But this story is about something else entirely – how it was received. The overall reaction was quite good, with a lot of ROFL emojis on Facebook and people finding it funny. However, some people were quite outraged about the cigarette! 

Of course, that’s well within their rights to react to any art as they see fit, I’m 100% fine with that, but it had me realize – yes, rats indeed are our babies! 

Drawing animals often involves a certain amount of anthropomorphizing, to display our furry friends in playful and relatable situations (in my case, also to familiarize people with the notion that we aren’t that different from animals). But why did seeing a rat with a cigarette evoke such a reaction? Because they are our babies 😀 

Nobody wants to see their kid with a ciggy and that goes for RATS as well!