Woman Yelling at Cat

Two strangers. One destiny. Maximum chaos.

On May 1, 2019, Twitter user @MISSINGEGIRL did what the internet does best: combined two completely unrelated images into something greater than the sum of its parts. On the left: Taylor Armstrong, mid-breakdown, pointing and crying during a 2011 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. On the right: Smudge, a white cat sitting at a dinner table looking deeply confused by the vegetables before him.

The juxtaposition was perfect. Taylor's unhinged fury contrasted with Smudge's bewildered innocence. It looked like a domestic dispute, an argument across the dinner table, a screenshot from the world's most dysfunctional reality show. The format demanded participation.

By mid-June 2019, the meme had colonized the entire internet. Every conflict, every disagreement, every argument where one party was clearly overreacting could be Woman Yelling at Cat. The template was flexible enough to accommodate political debates, relationship drama, and the eternal struggle between people who want to eat healthy and the cats who do not.

Smudge became a celebrity. His Instagram account (@smudge_lord) accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers. He was just a cat who didn't want to eat salad, and for that, he became legend.

Taylor Armstrong, for her part, handled her unexpected meme resurgence with grace. The moment that had been captured was from a difficult time in her life, but she found humor in its transformation.

The format burned bright through 2019 and into 2020, but eventually the screaming stopped. The cat looked up from his plate. The woman put down her wine glass. They went their separate ways.

But for one glorious year, they were the most dysfunctional couple on the internet.