As you know, when it comes to trending memes, the "Hajimi" community is always full of talent.
In every corner of the vast internet river, you can always catch glimpses of them inadvertently.
By now, the library of cat meme materials is quite extensive, with countless GIF emoticons emerging endlessly, covering common human emotions like "joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness." Even using only cat memes as material is enough to create fan-made videos with coherent logic and complete narratives.
Please choose your most frequently used Hajimi hero, and don't ask why a Dog.exe is mixed in here
Recently, the most well-known Hajimi is undoubtedly "Mao Die," who is currently strong in the meta.
As a traffic star on Love Cat TV, the arch-enemy of the Big Dog.exe Bark Club, and the lucky cat for Jiuyang Soy Milk, "Mao Die"'s influence has long penetrated the virtual network, enough to interfere with the real world.
But as the saying goes, each version has its god. In the newly updated version, a calico cat named "Da Kai Men" suddenly swept across major platforms, its momentum even surpassing "Mao Die" in the short term, topping the Hajimi influencer chart.
Along with "Da Kai Men" flooding netizens' short video recommendation algorithms were "Da Kai Men"'s exclusive props: carrots and tissues.
Perhaps it's hard to imagine why these three things, which usually never go together, suddenly became the top combination in the online world. Those unaware might think Love, Death & Robots released a new episode—"Cat, Tissue, and Carrot."
So, how exactly did these three become bundled together and go viral?
It all started when the cat owner "@SuperInvincibleDaKaiMen" wanted to use tissues and carrots to teach "Da Kai Men" how to distinguish items.
Of course, training pets to distinguish items is nothing new on the internet. Many people have likely come across smart cats and dogs that can accurately recognize their owners' commands and respond accordingly. Beyond simple object recognition and behavioral interaction, some pets can even master many vocabulary words, converse with their owners using communication buttons, and even express their thoughts and needs using simple grammatical structures.
Image source: Bilibili @MaomiFufuShuo
To be honest, the first time I saw these pet button communication videos, I strongly suspected that someone had reincarnated into the wrong body—a pet's body. If animals could get ID cards, they might have sat in the same exam hall as me during the college entrance exams.
After forwarding it to my cat, it solemnly declared that animals absolutely cannot achieve this level, and these must all be staged.
However, the reason "Da Kai Men" truly went viral was precisely the opposite of the videos mentioned above—it didn't become popular for being extremely smart and easily completing complex commands from its owner, but for being adorably dumb, making numerous mistakes while distinguishing items, always remaining in a superposition state of "Right, right, right, oh no, wrong, wrong, oh right, right, right... right?"
Looking at the training videos posted by "@SuperInvincibleDaKaiMen" previously, you'll find that "Da Kai Men"'s accuracy rate in recognizing its owner's commands was always fluctuating, sometimes high, sometimes low. Sometimes, "Da Kai Men" could hit the mark every time, perfectly selecting the "carrot" or "tissue" mentioned by the owner; but other times, it would be confused, needing multiple trials and errors to finally choose the item the owner wanted.
Every time the owner thought the cat had learned it, the cat hadn't actually fully mastered it. The improved accuracy rate in one video would drop back down in the next.
Over time, the owner and netizens finally noticed something suspicious—"Da Kai Men" was less answering questions and more guessing them.
When Jotaro Kujo couldn't tell which one was the Stand user, he chose to beat everyone up.
When "Da Kai Men" couldn't tell which answer was correct, it chose to touch all the answers.
The owner thought they had taught "Da Kai Men" to distinguish items, but "Da Kai Men" actually learned to read social cues. By observing the owner's reactions to continuously eliminate wrong answers, "Da Kai Men" could always get reward snacks through brute force, along with the owner's emotionally satisfying praise of "Good job!"
In the famous "Mickey Mouse Incident" that made it a star, "Da Kai Men"'s guessing strategy was finally fully exposed. After "Da Kai Men" selected Mickey Mouse correctly several times, the owner moved Mickey Mouse to a different spot. In the next test, it directly touched the empty space where Mickey Mouse used to be, vividly demonstrating what "marking the boat to find the sword" means.
Afterward, to determine if "Da Kai Men" was guessing, the owner created a "Desktop Cleanup Master" video for cross-validation. After removing all items, the owner gave the command again. After a brief moment of confusion, "Da Kai Men" still stuck to its old ways, grounding itself to eliminate static electricity.
This is just like myself in an exam hall unable to solve a big problem—even if I don't know how to solve it, at least writing "Solution:" can get me a point. Add a few more strokes, throw in two formulas, and maybe I can get another point. Seeing this, netizens couldn't suppress their grinning mouths. Anyone who can keep from laughing should probably check themselves for depression.
Thus, after "Da Kai Men"'s guessing behavior went viral, owners hoping for their children to succeed took the most commonly used test props from the videos, "carrots and tissues," and started making things difficult for their own Pokémon.
Faced with this sudden test, the not-so-smart pets were completely baffled—they had been lounging around their owner's home all year, and no one told them there would be a摸底 exam at the end of the year. Now that the intensity has suddenly increased, they can only think, "I don't understand what's being said, and I can't learn it."
The smart pets, on the other hand, were thrilled—they had already worn out the dialogue buttons from overuse. Now, going back to do easy questions like "distinguishing carrots from tissues" was like having students from the four provinces of Shanhe take the Beijing exam paper. Does my owner need to test me? I should test my owner. Now let me show you what a true flipped classroom looks like.
Image source: Bilibili @XiaoJiuLovesToEat
The "Shi Tiesheng Hajimi" with rear-wheel drive modification can only feel helpless—they didn't treat me like a disabled cat, but they didn't treat me like a cat either. You ask where my hands are? Then let me ask you, can you first ask where your conscience is?
Image source: Douyin @DinosaurCatBunny
Some pets learned it wrong, mistakenly taking "carrot" as their own name, causing the owner to lose their temper before the pet did, breaking down and hissing.
Image source: Bilibili @WangBaMr
Later, the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" quickly evolved from making things difficult for pets to making things difficult for humans themselves.
Don't worry about why humans are participating in this challenge; anyway, the trend caught on. Many netizens picked up carrots and tissues, started imitating "Da Kai Men," deliberately pretending not to distinguish between them, and groping back and forth between the carrot and the tissue. Even the aunties at the vegetable market probably didn't expect why carrots suddenly became so best-selling.
As deconstruction deepened, people began using the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" as a template, combining it with stereotypes of different groups, and adding things that are truly hard to distinguish into the challenge to create a series of scripts. For example, applying the classic gender difference tropes of "women can't recognize car logos" and "men can't distinguish cosmetics" to the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" fits particularly well.
Can't criticize, really can't tell the difference
Situations like this, where something is "common sense once you know it, but gibberish before," are countless in real life. As a result, the applicability of the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" has been infinitely expanded. Whether it's workplace newcomers bewildered by jargon or gamers struggling with complex controls, they can all be seamlessly integrated into the framework of the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge," turning into hilarious jokes.
As deconstruction went further, people didn't just want to make things difficult for carbon-based lifeforms, but even for silicon-based ones. The "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" gradually evolved from an interactive game between pets and owners into a carnival involving everyone, including even Cybertronians.
Some pursue fundamentalism, using electronic pets made with programming and motors to help "Da Kai Men" achieve cyber ascension, perfectly replicating its brute-force strategy one-to-one.
Others went the abstract route, starting to use readily available devices around them, or even mobile app icons, for the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge."
Many old memes also got a "review and learn new things" treatment—as long as there's a famous scene of pointing at an item with a finger, it can be fitted into the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" formula. Even the clip of Liu Huaqiang pulling out a magnet became popular again thanks to the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge."
At this stage, the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" had completely become a traffic magnet. Many people using it no longer considered the fit between the meme and the subject matter, but simply tried to ride the wave to gain enough attention. As for what happened later, everyone is probably familiar with it—sellers, edge-lords, and comedians all started jumping on the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" bandwagon to蹭 heat. Many companies also joined in, using the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" for major promotions.
Speaking of which, this article can end with a familiar conclusion: "Ah, this is the internet."
But honestly, I'm tired of writing this kind of ending, and you guys are probably tired of reading it too.
So, let's narrow our perspective back and return to "Da Kai Men"'s performance in the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" itself—is "Da Kai Men," which can't truly distinguish items and relies on brute force and reading social cues to guess answers, really stupid?
Compared to pets that can accurately understand their owners' commands and even interact using communication buttons, "Da Kai Men"'s performance naturally doesn't seem very smart. After seeing videos of those smart pets, netizens难免 form an impression of "Da Kai Men" as "stupid" when they see it relying on brute force to solve problems.
But saying it's dumb isn't entirely accurate either.
Keep in mind that "Da Kai Men"'s opponents are the smartest batch of pets selected through the survival of the fittest by internet algorithms. Comparing "Da Kai Men" to them is like throwing a smurf into a high-elo lobby.
Netizens who haven't raised cats much tell "Da Kai Men" to learn from other people's children; owners who have actually raised cats know that "Da Kai Men" is the other people's child.
If you've watched "Da Kai Men"'s previous videos, you'll find that it is quite sensitive to its owner's action commands and has a high accuracy rate in executing them. Whether asked to shake hands, high-five, or stand, it can complete the tasks quickly and accurately.
And for the voice commands in the "Carrot and Tissue Challenge" that it didn't quite understand, "Da Kai Men" would still try its best to figure out what the owner was asking it to do, striving to complete the interaction correctly. Compared to pets that completely fail to understand their owner's intentions, it is already many times better.
From another perspective, after realizing its hardware computing power wasn't enough to run voice-to-image recognition models, "Da Kai Men" turned to software algorithms to compensate, breaking the deadlock with a brute-force method. Isn't this also a manifestation of intelligence?
This kind of superb cat, willing to interact actively with the teacher and rack its brains to answer questions, would be considered a good student even in a real classroom.
As for the real "bad students," they won't乖乖 go to the exam hall with you.
They only go to the battlefield and then hiss at you.
Ha! Scared me to death!