in

Bento, The ‘Keyboard Cat’ Behind The Popular GIF Meme, Has Died—And Twitter Is In Mourning

Back in the day when GIFs and memes were first appearing on the scene and we were all obsessed with watching weird yet hilarious videos on YouTube, we were introduced to Bento the Keyboard Cat.

Fun fact: Bento wasn’t the original “keyboard cat.” In fact, Bento’s owner, Charlie Schmidt had a cat in the ’80s named Fatso who was also a “keyboard cat.” After he passed away, Schmidt had adopted Bento and wanted to uphold the legacy.

After hearing about Bento’s passing, Twitter was definitely shocked, upset, and deeply emotional–I mean, can you blame them really…Bento was apart of all of our Internet childhoods.