Smudge the Cat

Smudge is a white rescue cat from Ottawa whose skeptical dinner-table face became a meme before it was paired with any yelling woman. When a guest left a chair in front of a salad, Smudge took the seat; owner Miranda Stillabower photographed him looking deeply unimpressed.

Stillabower posted the picture to Tumblr as deadbeforedeath on June 19, 2018 with the caption “he no like vegetals.” It accumulated more than 50,000 notes within a year, establishing Smudge as Cat at Dinner Table.

The other half comes from the December 5, 2011 Real Housewives of Beverly Hills episode “Malibu Beach Party From Hell,” where Taylor Armstrong cries and points while Kyle Richards holds her back. The two images were unrelated for years.

On May 1, 2019, @MISSINGEGIRL placed the Housewives still beside Smudge and wrote that the photos together were making her lose it. The tweet reached more than 78,000 retweets and 275,000 likes in a little over three months; a June 2 Reddit variation about the New York Knicks helped turn the pairing into a reusable argument template.

Stillabower opened @smudge_lord on Instagram on May 27. By late 2019 Smudge had 1.4 million followers, dedicated fan groups and merchandise whose owners donated part of the proceeds to cat rescue. The format spread into Halloween costumes, paintings, political signs, The Sims and LEGO recreations.

Armstrong publicly embraced the joke while making clear that she had moved beyond the painful reality-TV moment. In May 2020, Woman Yelling at a Cat won Meme of the Year at the Shorty Awards, confirming Smudge's move from Tumblr pet photo to one of the defining faces of 2019.

The split image invents an argument that never happened: maximum human emotion meets a cat who looks both confused and stubborn. Any two opposing labels can take their places.

Use Smudge alone for disgust or refusal; use the full two-panel format for arguments, corrections and two sides talking past each other.