Maru

Maru is a male Scottish Fold cat from Japan who became one of the earliest international viral cat stars. His owner — known online only as "mugumogu" — began posting videos in 2007 of Maru charging headfirst into cardboard boxes, sliding across floors, and squeezing himself into containers far too small for him. The combination of Maru's evident joy and the relentlessly cheerful aesthetic of mugumogu's videos struck a global chord. By 2016, Maru held the Guinness World Record for the most YouTube views of an individual animal — over 325 million at the time and now well past 400 million. He has been the subject of multiple books, calendars, and merchandise lines in Japan and abroad. His videos appear in the permanent collection of the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. Maru's success arguably created the template for the modern "internet cat" — a single recognisable feline with consistent visual branding, a devoted owner-curator, and content released on a reliable schedule. He still lives quietly at home with mugumogu and his adopted sister Hana, who joined him in 2014.