TikTok’s 4 dabloons cat meme, explained

TikTok is abuzz with a meme about fake currency driven by cats, as cryptocurrencies fail and Twitter loses staff. Much like the chokehold of Tumblr’s recent Goncharov (1973) memes, “dabloon” jokes have enraptured TikTok’s giant audience and become a communal bit where people role-play spending and earning a fictional “dabloon” currency. Multiple videos have been viewed more than a million times.

This dabloon meme is absurd and playful in a way which defies explanation. Still, I think it’s great, and you should get in on the joke too. This is how the TikTok dabloon cat trading TikTok meme trend was explained.

What’s the TikTok trend for dabloons?

It’s a giant, internet-driven, communal role-play phenomenon. Here’s how it works: You scroll through TikTok until you bump into a dabloon video. The video will use TikTok’s slideshow feature to flip through a series of images. Every image will feature an item. At the end, a cat may offer to pay you or not dabloons for these items. You can recognize a video easily, because it’s set to a sped-up version of a track from the game My Singing Monsters.

Here’s an example: The video addresses you, the viewer, and offers you an item like hot chocolate. The black cat appears, and then tells you the item costs four dabloons. You will be clear: there is no website, entity or other external source that gives you dabloons. Each aspect of the joke is fictitious and you are the only one who can see it. One early version of the joke suggested a trade for four soup dabloons.

Several videos are embedded into this article, but you’ll need the TikTok app to view them. You can also see the full slideshow below, which Randombrainrot posted to TikTok. This video shows four Dabloons trading different bakery products.

Grid View

TikTok users can trade dabloons for various items. You can now find videos to help you pay off your dabloon debt. Some people were also robbed by their dabloons.

What is a dabloon?

A “dabloon” is the fictional meme currency exchanged in the TikTok trend. According to Know Your Meme, the original image and phrase are derived from an Instagram meme in 2021. It’s not really clear what dabloons actually are, but based on the original joke, the dabloons likely refer to a cat’s toe beans. It may also be a riff on the real world historical currency “doubloon,” gold coins minted in colonial Spain. But I want to stress that this isn’t a cryptocurrency or anything, it’s just a massive joke.

What is the point of talking about dabloons in general?

The joke — that we are all trading with these cats for a fictional currency to get fictional items — has taken TikTok by storm. Know Your Meme attributes the inspiration for the joke to several key posts from last weekend. Over 20,000 people have used the clip, with some videos reaching over 1 million views. There are many other jokes about the dabloon cat and people expanding upon it. One person analyzed the dabloon market over the past few days to the tune of 1.2 million views, and another predicted a “dabloon Great Depression.” In another popular video, a person shared a spreadsheet they made that tracked all their dabloon interactions.

I’ve been keeping a running list of my own dabloon interactions as they’ve come up in my TikTok feed. Reigen Meowata (cat version of Tumblr’s sexyman Reigen) charged me 10 Dabloons to legal services. This was when I fell into dabloon debt. Another cat made me declare that I wasn’t in dabloon debt, and so now I am in the black. It’s like a role-play game that’s interjected sporadically into my TikTok main feed as I scroll. I giggle and update friends as I move in and out of dabloon debt and keep a running tally of the items I’ve gotten. I find it very similar to the role-playing-esque online game. Blaseball.

It’s also genuinely hilarious to see a fake currency based off a meme cat thrive after people are questioning the value of cryptocurrencies. Videos about dabloons often feature women-presenting people. It feels appropriate to respond to an environment that may be too dependent on crypto-bros for their truth.

But beyond reading into it, it’s just fucking fun. I’m used to logging on to Twitter and dealing with mean-spirited responses and messages to nearly everything I put out online, while I mindlessly doomscroll. Dabloon cats are a welcome balm in an internet world that’s been a bit schizo lately. This means that my TikTok zombie scrolling can be transformed into a waiting-and-see game, which I can then share with my friends. It’s absurd. It’s fun. Unfortunately, this cat will make you pay 12 dabloons just for reading the article.